"The tradition of John Burroughs, which you seek to keep alive through these awards, is a long and honorable one. It is a tradition that had its beginnings in even earlier writings. On the other side of the Atlantic it flowered most fully in the works of Richard Jefferies and W. H. Hudson; and in this country the pen of Thoreau - as that of John Burroughs himself-most truly represented the contemplative observer of the world about us. These four, I think, were the great masters. To those of us who have come later, there can scarcely be any greater honor than to be compared to one of them. Yet if we are true to the spirit of John Burroughs, or of Jefferies or Hudson or Thoreau, we are not imitators of them but-as they themselves were - we are pioneers in new areas of thought and knowledge. If we are true to them, we are the creators of a new type of literature as representative of our own day as was their own."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from the United StatesPeople from New York (state)Essayists from the United StatesNaturalists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Rachel Carson 1950s speech included in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1998)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Burroughs
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
John Burroughs
John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 - March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist.
27 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by John Burroughs →
Related Quotes
"Science has fairly turned us out of our comfortable little anthropomorphic notion of things into the great out-of-doo…"
"Theology passes; religion, as a sentiment or feeling of awe and reverence in the presence of the vastness and mystery…"
"The old theology had few if any fast colors, and it has become very faded and worn under the fierce light and intense…"
"We are like figures which some great demonstrator draws upon the blackboard of Time. A problem is to be solved, witho…"
"From the first the progress of man has been slowly but surely from the artificial to the natural, from the arbitrary …"
"All political progress has been the removal of forced and artificial relations among men, and the establishment of na…"
"Science, in the broadest sense, is simply that which may be verified; but how much of that which theology accepts and…"
"Theology, for the most part, adopts the personal point of view the point of view of our personal wants, fears, hopes,…"
"...the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind."
"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk …"