We talk of communing with Nature, but ’tis with ourselves we commune… Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment. – John Burroughs
I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral. – John Burroughs
Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight. – John Burroughs
Our flying squirrel is in no proper sense a flyer. On the ground, he is more helpless than a chipmunk, because less agile. He can only sail or slide down a steep incline from the top of one tree to the foot of another. – John Burroughs
The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it. – John Burroughs
The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then it is betrayed into weaving into its structure showy and bizarre bits of this or that, which give its secret away and which seem to violate all the traditions of its kind. – John Burroughs
Man takes root at his feet, and at best, he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it. – John Burroughs
Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all. – John Burroughs
We are beginning to see that money, after all, is not the main thing. The real values cannot be bought and sold. – John Burroughs
Writing is reporting what we saw after the vision has left us. It is catching the fish which the tide has left far up on our shores in the low and depressed places. – John Burroughs
Most birds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run or hop upon the ground, carry the head as if it were riveted to the body. Not so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, or the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movement of the feet. – John Burroughs
Without the emotion of the beautiful, the sublime, the mysterious, there is no art, no religion, no literature. – John Burroughs
There is something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-conscious pride and exultation in the laughter. – John Burroughs
Why, we have invented the whole machinery of the supernatural, with its unseen spirits and powers, good and bad, to account for things, because we found the universal everyday nature too cheap, too common, too vulgar. – John Burroughs
To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not confined to sweet sounds. – John Burroughs
There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male bluebird. He is the gay champion and escort of the female at all times, and while she is sitting, he feeds her regularly. – John Burroughs
To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not detracting from its divinity; it is rather conferring divinity upon the body. – John Burroughs
No one else looks out upon the world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian; no one else gives and takes so much from the country he passes through. – John Burroughs
The phoebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its person and its nest, as any other bird. Its modest ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks where it builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use gives to its nest the look of a natural growth or accretion. – John Burroughs
Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him. – John Burroughs
If America wishes to preserve her native birds, we must help supply what civilization has taken from them. The building of cities and towns, the cutting down of forests, and the draining of pools and swamps have deprived American birds of their original homes and food supply. – John Burroughs
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. – John Burroughs
