Back To Earth Talk Index

John Burroughs

John Burroughs was born in 1837. He was a friend and biographer of Walt Whitman, in addition to being the author of numerous nature books, including: Wake Robin (1871), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), and The Breath of Life (1915). He died in 1921.

The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow, the dogtooth violet when to expect the wood-thrush, and when I have found the wakerobin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated. Wake Robin, 1871

With June the cup is full, our hearts are satisfied, there is no more to be desired. Ibid.

I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found it good. Leaf and Tendril, 1908.

I look upon this craze for wealth that possesses nearly all classes in our time as one of the most lamentable spectacles the world has ever seen. Ibid.

I go to books and nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey. The Summit of the Years.

From the summit of the years I look back over my life, and see what I have escaped and what I have missed, as a traveler might look back over his course from a mountaintop . . . I have escaped the soul-killing and body-wrecking occupations that are the fate of so many men in my time. I have escaped the greed of wealth, the "mania of owning things," as Whitman called it . . .Ibid.

For my part, as I grow older I am more and more inclined to reduce my baggage, to lop off superfluities. Gospel of Nature, 1912.

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. Ibid.

Man changes the conditions to suit the things. Nature changes the things to suit the conditions. Ibid.

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. Ibid.

I see the Nature Providence going its impartial way. I see drought and flood, heat and cold, war and pestilence, defeat and death, besetting man at all times, in all lands. I see hostile germs in the air he breathes, in the water he drinks, in the soil he tills. I see the elemental forces as indifferent toward him as toward ants and fleas. Accepting the Universe

I see on an immense scale, and as clearly as in a demonstration in a laboratory, that good comes out of evil; that the impartiality of the Nature Providence is best; that we are made strong by what we overcome; that man is man because he is as free to do evil as to do good; that life is as free to develop hostile forms as to develop friendly; that power waits upon him who earns it; that disease, wars, the unloosened, devastating elemental forces have each and all played their part in developing and hardening man and giving him the heroic fiber. Ibid.

I was born with a chronic anxiety about the weather. Is It Going To Rain?

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative. The Light of Day.

In the twilight now the long-drawn trill of the toad may be heard - tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r - a long row of vocal dots on the dusky page of the twilight. It is one of the soothing, quieting sounds - a chain of bubbles, like its chain of eggs&emdash;a bell reduced to an even quieting monotone. Journals.

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. Ibid.

The season is always a little behind the sun in our climate, just as the tide is always a little behind the moon. Deep Woods, 1990.

The bluebirds! It seemed as if they must have been waiting somewhere close by for the first warm day, like actors behind the scenes, for they were here in numbers early in the morning; they rushed upon the stage very promptly when their parts were called. Ibid.

Welcome to April, my natal month; the month of the swelling buds, the springing grass, the first nests, the first plantings, the first flowers, and, last but not least, the first shad! Ibid.

Ice may come, and ice may go, says the river, but I go on forever. Ibid