Quote

The life of nature we must meet halfway it is shy, withdrawn, and blends itself with a vast neutral background.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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John Burroughs
Age: 83 †
Born: 1837
Born: April 3
Died: 1921
Died: March 29
Essayist
Naturalist
Writer
Delaware County
New York
Wells
Background
Well
Secrets
Blends
Must
Backgrounds
Initiated
Life
Vast
Withdrawn
Meet
Guarded
Secret
Neutral
Order
Halfway
Nature
Shy

More quotes by John Burroughs

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In what bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, and know all that has happened. I cross the fields, and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor, the fact is chronicled.
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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The deeper our insight into the methods of nature . . . the more incredible the popular Christianity seems to us.
John Burroughs
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Certainly in the United States, you have a constituency in the form of the weapons laboratories, and you also have the branches of the armed services that are involved with nuclear weapons deployment, especially the naval submarine operations and also the air force's land-based ICBM operations. So they have a big lobby in Washington.
John Burroughs
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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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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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[T]he cold warms me—after a different fashion from that of the kitchen stove.
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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One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
John Burroughs
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The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
John Burroughs
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The honey-bee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get by hook or crook.
John Burroughs
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The budget for nuclear forces in the United States is on the order of $25 billion or so. That includes warheads, delivery systems, command and control does not include environmental clean-up, which is another maybe $10 billion or so. So that's about 5% of the U.S. military budget.
John Burroughs
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Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are busy and not left to feed upon themselves. Blessed is the person who has some congenial work, some occupation in which to place one's heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces that are in him or her.
John Burroughs
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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.
John Burroughs
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Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, For lo! my own shall come to me.
John Burroughs
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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.
John Burroughs
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If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature.
John Burroughs
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I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
John Burroughs
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The overall quantity of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline slowly.
John Burroughs
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Nature comes home to one most when one is at home. The stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and traveler also.
John Burroughs