Top 100 John Burroughs Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you think you can do it, you can.”

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Perspective Quotes, Optimism Quotes, Expectations Quotes, Quotes About Believing, Graduation Quotes

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

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Wellness Quotes, Feel Better Quotes, Healing Quotes, Nature Quotes, Health Quotes

3. “The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.”

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Positive Motivation Quotes, Wisdom Quotes, Positive Work Quotes, Taking Action Quotes, Helping Quotes

4. “Leap and the net will appear.”

— John Burroughs

5. “We are made strong by what we overcome.”

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Strong Quotes

6. “A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Summer Quotes, Winter Quotes

8. “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Birthday Quotes

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

— John Burroughs

10. “In the order of nature we may behold the ways of the Eternal.”

— John Burroughs

11. “For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice – no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

13. “Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.”

— John Burroughs

14. “The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it.”

— John Burroughs

15. “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.”

— John Burroughs

16. “The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”

— John Burroughs

17. “The secret of happiness is something to do.”

— John Burroughs

18. “Every day is a Sabbath to me. All pure water is holy water, and this earth is a celestial abode.”

— John Burroughs

19. “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.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

21. “The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it.”

— John Burroughs

22. “Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea; I rave no more ’gainst time or fate, For lo! my own shall come to me.”

— John Burroughs

23. “O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best...”

— John Burroughs

24. “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.”

— John Burroughs

25. “One of the hardest lessons we have to learn in this life, and one that many persons never learn, is to see the divine, the celestial, the pure, in the common, the near at hand-to see that heaven lies about us here in this world.”

— John Burroughs

26. “The honey-bee’s great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get by hook or crook.”

— John Burroughs

27. “The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment.”

— John Burroughs

28. “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

Featured in: Fun Quotes

29. “Happiness comes most to persons who seek it least and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought, it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it.”

— John Burroughs

30. “Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.”

— John Burroughs

31. “One can only learn his powers of action by action, and his powers of thought by thinking.”

— John Burroughs

32. “To see Earth fully we already need to love it.”

— John Burroughs

33. “It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.”

— John Burroughs

34. “To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.”

— John Burroughs

35. “The fuel in the earth will be exhausted in a thousand or more years, and its mineral wealth, but man will find substitutes for these in the winds, the waves, the sun’s heat, and so forth.”

— John Burroughs

36. “Love is the measure of life; only so far as we love do we really live.”

— John Burroughs

37. “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.”

— John Burroughs

38. “I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. My very thoughts become thirsty, and crave the moisture.”

— John Burroughs

39. “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.”

— John Burroughs

40. “Without death and decay, how could life go on?”

— John Burroughs

41. “I still find each day too short...”

— John Burroughs

42. “One may return to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth.”

— John Burroughs

43. “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

44. “Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world.”

— John Burroughs

45. “For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice.”

— John Burroughs

46. “I go to books and to nature as the bee goes to a flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.”

— John Burroughs

Featured in: Reading Quotes

47. “The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.”

— John Burroughs

48. “When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast.”

— John Burroughs

49. “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.”

— John Burroughs

50. “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