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One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.

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
Human
Humans
Weeds
Tempted
Plants
Weed
Plant
Garden

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Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.
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You cannot cause disproportionate damage to the environment you cannot harm neutral states. The court said that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to the international law of armed conflict.
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It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
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The pleasure and value of every walk or journey we take may be doubled to us by carefully noting down the impressions it makes upon us.
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In New York and New England the sap starts up in the sugar maple the very day the bluebird arrives, and sugar-making begins forthwith. The bird is generally a mere disembodied voice a rumor in the air for two or three days before it takes visible shape before you.
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Unfortunately, nuclear weapons have become identified with state power.
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Nature exists for man no more than she does for monkeys, and is as regardless of his life or pleasure or success as she is of the fleas. Her waves will drown him, her fire burn him, and her earth devour him, her storms and lightning smite him, as if he were only a dog.
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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.
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I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
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Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.
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One can return to their place of birth, but one cannot go back to your youth.
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Love is the measure of life only so far as we love do we really live.
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Natural history is a matter of observation it is a harvest which you gather when and where you find it growing. Birds and squirrels and flowers are not always in season, but philosophy we have always with us. It is a crop which we can grow and reap at all times and in all places and it has its own value and brings its own satisfaction.
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To find the universal elements enough to find the air and the water exhilarating to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
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I still find each day too short.
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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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A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
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The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment.
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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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There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.
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