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How much there is in books that one does not want to know, that it would be a mere weariness and burden to the spirit to know.

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
Books
Reading
Spirit
Doe
Book
Much
Weariness
Would
Burden
Mere

More quotes by 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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The poor old earth which has mothered us and nursed us we treat with scant respect. Our awe and veneration we reserve for the worlds we know not of. Our senses sell us out. The mud on our shoes disenchants us.
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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I am not going to advocate ... the abandoning of the improved modes of travel but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shining angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever looking out for a chance to ride.
John Burroughs
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I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.
John Burroughs
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The God of the Puritans...was a monster too horrible to contemplate.
John Burroughs
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One can return to their place of birth, but one cannot go back to your youth.
John Burroughs
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To the scientist Nature is a storehouse of facts, laws, processes to the artist she is a storehouse of pictures to the poet she is a storehouse of images, fancies, a source of inspiration to the moralist she is a storehouse of precepts and parables to all she may be a source of knowledge and joy.
John Burroughs
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We can outrun the wind and the storm, but we cannot outrun the demon of hurry.
John Burroughs
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There are nine countries in the world that have nuclear weapons. There are about 27,000 nuclear weapons total on the planet. The countries that have nuclear weapons deploy them ready for use and have doctrines saying that they would use them in certain circumstances.
John Burroughs
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In fact, the United States is building up its trident nuclear sub fleet in the Pacific, based at Bangor, Washington to build up its capabilities to wage nuclear war.
John Burroughs
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Some men are like nails, very easily drawn others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
John Burroughs
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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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Almost all of the governments have agreed that they will not acquire nuclear weapons and that they will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor their commercial and research nuclear power operations to ensure that nuclear materials - highly enriched uranium and plutonium - are not diverted to use in weapons.
John Burroughs
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The place to observe nature is where you are.
John Burroughs
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The story goes on in the sense that at a most basic level, the United States ignored, that is violated, the United Nations charter when it invaded Iraq in 2003. This is not wise policy.
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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The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.
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
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The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment.
John Burroughs