John Burroughs

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.

Joy in the universe and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.

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

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

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

To learn something new take the path that you took yesterday.

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.

To me - old age is always ten years older than I am.

Life is a struggle but not a warfare.

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle not till then.

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

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

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.

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

The secret of happiness is something to do.

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing to imagine your facts is another.

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

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

If you think you can do it you can.

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.