Top 100 John Burroughs Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature...”

— John Burroughs

52. “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.”

— John Burroughs

53. “I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

55. “We cannot walk through life on mountain peaks.”

— John Burroughs

56. “Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.”

— John Burroughs

57. “Literature is an investment of genius which has dividends to all subsequent times.”

— John Burroughs

58. “Before the bud swells, before the grass springs, before the plough is started, comes the sugar harvest. It is sequel of the bitter frost; a sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter.”

— John Burroughs

59. “I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.”

— John Burroughs

60. “The gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace like genius or like beauty, and never becomes common or cheap.”

— John Burroughs

61. “Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influence of family the tyranny of culture; and finally the power of climate and environment; and we are free, only to the extent we rise above these.”

— John Burroughs

62. “Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.”

— John Burroughs

63. “I have loved the feel of the grass under my feet, and the sound of the running streams by my side. The hum of the wind in the tree-tops has always been good music to me, and the face of the fields has often comforted me more than the faces of men.”

— John Burroughs

64. “Nothing relieves and ventilates the mind like a resolution.”

— John Burroughs

65. “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

66. “That which distinguishes this day from all others is that then both orators and artillerymen shoot blank cartridges.”

— John Burroughs

67. “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

68. “If the October days were a cordial like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a tonic like the wine of iron. Drink deep or be careful how you taste this December vintage. The first sip may chill, but a full draught warms and invigorates.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

70. “How readily the bluebirds become our friends and neighbors when we offer them suitable nesting retreats!”

— John Burroughs

71. “Culture means the perfect and equal development of man on all sides.”

— John Burroughs

72. “I was born with a chronic anxiety about the weather.”

— John Burroughs

73. “The atmosphere of our time is fast being cleared of the fumes and deadly gases that arose during the carboniferous age of theology.”

— John Burroughs

74. “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

75. “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

76. “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

77. “In the printed page the only real things are the paper and the ink; the white spaces play the same part in aiding the eye to take in the meaning of the print as do the black letters.”

— John Burroughs

78. “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.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

80. “A nation always begins to rot first in its great cities, is indeed perhaps always rotting there, and is saved only by the antiseptic virtues of fresh supplies of country blood.”

— John Burroughs

81. “There is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other. What is it? Something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all people and what a wretched world it would be.”

— John Burroughs

82. “Close scrutiny of an object in nature will nearly always yield some significant fact...”

— John Burroughs

83. “The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made for his lungs, but he has lungs because there is air; the light was not created for his eye, but he has eyes because there is light. All the forces of nature are going their own way; man avails himself of them, or catches a ride as best he can. If he keeps his seat, he prospers; if he misses his hold and falls, he is crushed.”

— John Burroughs

84. “There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.”

— John Burroughs

85. “The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.”

— John Burroughs

86. “One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.”

— John Burroughs

87. “Science makes no claim to infallibility; it leaves that claim to be made by theologians.”

— John Burroughs

88. “One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.”

— John Burroughs

89. “Nature comes home to one most when one is at home. The stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and traveler also.”

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

92. “Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.”

— John Burroughs

93. “Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That’s Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.”

— John Burroughs

94. “I came from a race of fishers; trout streams gurgled about the roots of my family tree.”

— John Burroughs

95. “Then, again, how annoying to be told it is only five miles to the next place when it is really eight or ten!”

— John Burroughs

96. “We have produced some good walkers and saunterers, and some noted climbers; but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking.”

— John Burroughs

97. “If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.”

— John Burroughs

98. “Science kills credulity and superstition, but to the well-balanced mind it enhances the feeling of wonder, of veneration, and of kinship which we feel in the presence of the miraculous universe.”

— John Burroughs

99. “He said afterwards that his ranch life had been the making of him. It had built him up and hardened him physically, and it had opened his eyes to the wealth of manly character among the plainsmen and cattlemen.”

— John Burroughs

100. “The lesson in running brooks is that motion is a great purifier and health-producer. When the brook ceases to run, it soon stagnates. It keeps in touch with the great vital currents when it is in motion, and unites with other brooks to help make the river. In motion it soon leaves all mud and sediment behind. Do not proper work and the exercise of will power have the same effect upon our lives?”

— John Burroughs