American - Author | April 3, 1837 - March 29, 1921
The animal world seizes its food in masses little and big, and often gorges itself with it, but the vegetable, through the agency of the solvent power of water, absorbs its nourishment molecule by molecule.
John Burroughs
PowerWaterFoodAnimalWorldBig
To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not confined to sweet sounds.
NatureMusicSweetStrongSounds
One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier sights than two males challenging and curveting about each other upon the grass in early spring. Their attentions to each other are so courteous and restrained.
SpringEarlyKnowGrassTwoSights
If one gains an interest in the history of the earth, he is quite sure to gain an interest in the history of the life on the earth. If the former illustrates the theory of development, so must the latter. The geologist is pretty sure to be an evolutionist.
LifeHistoryEarthDevelopmentSure
I am sure I was an evolutionist in the abstract, or by the quality and complexion of my mind, before I read Darwin, but to become an evolutionist in the concrete, and accept the doctrine of the animal origin of man, has not for me been an easy matter.
QualityManI AmAnimalMindMe
It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.
LifeMeWonderEvolutionOutSeems
Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; he is one of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants, as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grossbeak, with their distant, high-bred ways.
FamilyBirdsRareUsSeemsExotic
All birds are incipient or would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of the cock.
SpringBirdsFindEvidenceEven
The homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their most remarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill in finding their way back when removed to a distance. It seems at times as if they possessed some extra sense - the home sense - which operates unerringly.
HomeBirdsStrongFindingBackWay
Emerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books he gave to the world.
WorldFameThinkerLifetimeBooks
Emerson was such an important figure in our literary history, and in the moral and religious development of our people, that attention cannot be directed to him too often.
HistoryPeopleAttentionMoralHim
The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign of an army: the ranks are being continually depleted and continually recruited.
LifeArmyActiveBeingLikeBees
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