John Burroughs

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John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was Wake-Robin in 1871.

Quotes from John Burroughs

It is good that fire should burn, even if it consumes your house; it is good that force should crush, even if it crushes you; it is good that rain should fall, even if it destroys your crops and floods your land. Plagues and pestilences attest to the constancy of natural law. They set us to cleaning our streets and houses and to readjusting our relations to outward nature. Only in a live universe could disease and death prevail. Death is a phase of life, a redistributing of the type. Decay is another kind of growth.

—John Burroughs

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bad good death all one sickness

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How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.

—John Burroughs

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beauty age light color

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Leap, and the net will appear.

—John Burroughs

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risk safety possibility

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

—John Burroughs

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mind belief denial

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The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

—John Burroughs

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birds

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The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.

—John Burroughs

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winter

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I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.

—John Burroughs

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nature healing wilderness

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The secret of happiness is something to do.

—John Burroughs

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The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.

—John Burroughs

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