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Nature will not be conquered, but gives herself freely to her true lover - to him who revels with her, bathes in her seas, sails her rivers, camps in her woods, and with no mercenary ends, accepts all.

John Burroughs

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John Burroughs
Age: 83 †
Born: 1837
Born: April 3
Died: 1921
Died: March 29
Essayist
Naturalist
Writer
Delaware County
New York
Nature
Lover
Mercenary
Ends
Woods
Sails
Giving
Rivers
Accepts
Lovers
Seas
Sea
Conquered
Accepting
Freely
Gives
Sail
Bathes
True
Camps
Revels

More quotes by John Burroughs

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It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
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The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.
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I want nothing less than a faith founded upon a rock, faith in the constitution of things. The various man-made creeds are fictitious, like the constellations Orion, Cassiopeia’s Chair, the Big Dipper the only thing real in them is the stars, and the only thing real in the creeds is the soul’s aspiration toward the Infinite.
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Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.
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We've been in a period of relative stability and cooperation since the end of the Cold War among the world's major powers, but that may not always exist. And certainly one could even predict that there will be periods of hostility or tension ahead.
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I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. My very thoughts become thirsty, and crave the moisture.
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One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
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For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed to miss something kindred and precious from my environment--the visible embodiment of the tender sky and wistful soil. What a loss, I said, to coming generations of dwellers in the country--no bluebird in spring!
John Burroughs
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[T]he cold warms me—after a different fashion from that of the kitchen stove.
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Look underfoot. You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world.
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Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.
John Burroughs
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Unfortunately, nuclear weapons have become identified with state power.
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[Theodore Roosevelt] was a naturalist on the broadest grounds, uniting much technical knowledge with knowledge of the daily lives and habits of all forms of wild life. He probably knew tenfold more natural history than all the presidents who had preceded him, and, I think one is safe in saying, more human history also.
John Burroughs
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The life of nature we must meet halfway it is shy, withdrawn, and blends itself with a vast neutral background. We must be initiated it is an order the secrets of which are well guarded.
John Burroughs
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The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
John Burroughs
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The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.
John Burroughs
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We have produced some good walkers and saunterers, and some noted climbers but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking.
John Burroughs
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One may return to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth.
John Burroughs
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Look up at the miracle of the falling snow,—the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes, noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery all objects upon which they fall.
John Burroughs
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The place to observe nature is where you are.
John Burroughs