American - Author | April 3, 1837 - March 29, 1921
The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
John Burroughs
WisdomBetterIntentionGreatest
Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, its relationship to other flowers, and gives the mind something tangible to grasp. It is very difficult for persons who have had no special training to learn the names of the flowers from the botany.
FamilyFlowerRelationshipTraining
The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.
DogManAngerDoorBeastTeeth
The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then it is betrayed into weaving into its structure showy and bizarre bits of this or that, which give its secret away and which seem to violate all the traditions of its kind.
ArtBirdNowKindNestSecret
The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and grain-fields.
RedGuiltySquirrelPettyMoreGray
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
NatureGoOrderSensesHealedPut
Our flying squirrel is in no proper sense a flyer. On the ground, he is more helpless than a chipmunk, because less agile. He can only sail or slide down a steep incline from the top of one tree to the foot of another.
TreeSailFlyingDownSquirrelTop
When a herd of cattle see a strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and the horse is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it. There is a great deal of speculation in the eye of an animal, but very little science.
ScienceGreatAnimalEyeHorseSee
To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it means to many fortunate human beings - travels in warm climes. To still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death.
LifeWinterStruggleTogetherSoul
The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimenting her to call her a queen and invest her with regal authority, yet she is a superb creature and looks every inch a queen.
MotherQueenBeeLooksAuthority
To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.
PathLearnYouYesterdayNewTake
Whitman was Emerson translated from the abstract into the concrete.
ConcreteAbstractWhitmanEmerson
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