John Burroughs Quotes - Page 2

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.

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.

If you want to see birds, you must have birds in your heart.

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.

A man’s life may stagnate as literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.

One can only learn his powers of action by action, and his powers of thought by thinking

Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.

Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it.

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.

Nature is not benevolent; Nature is just, gives pound for pound, measure for measure, makes no exceptions, never tempers her decrees with mercy, or winks at any infringement of her laws.

When you bait your hook with your heart, the fish always bite.

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.

Oh, Spring is surely coming, Her couriers fill the air; Each morn are new arrivals, Each night her ways prepare; I scent her fragrant garments, Her foot is on the stair.

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.

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. There are no heretics in Nature's church; all are believers, all are communicants. The beauty of natural religion is that you have it all the time; you do not have to seek it afar off in myths and legends, in catacombs, in garbled texts, in miracles of dead saints or wine-bibbing friars. It is of today; it is now and here; it is everywhere.

What a severe yet master artist old Winter is... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.

In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.

To see Earth fully we already need to love it

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.

I am in love with this world. It has been my home. It has been my point of outlook into the universe. I have never bruised myself against it nor tried to use it ignobly.

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.