"The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention."
"How many thorns of human nature - hard, sharp, lifeless protuberances that tear and wound us, narrow prejudices, bristling conceits that repel and disgust us - are arrested developments, calcified tendencies, buds of promise that should have lifted a branch up into the sunny day with fruit; and flowers to delight the heart of men, but now all grown hard, petrified, for want of culture and a congenial soil and climate."
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Source: John Burroughs, Farida Anna Wiley (1997). “John Burroughs' America: Selections from the Writings of the Naturalist”, p.3, Courier Corporation
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