"The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention."
"I see on a immense scale, and as clearly as in a demonstration in a laboratory, that good comes out of evil; that the impartiality of the Nature Providence is best; that we are made strong by what we overcome; that man is man because he is as free to do evil as to do good; that life is as free to develop hostile forms as to develop friendly; that power waits upon him who earns it; that disease, wars, the unloosened, devastating elemental forces have each and all played their part in developing and hardening man and giving him the heroic fiber."
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Source: John Burroughs (1924). “Accepting the universe”
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"A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else."
"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."
"How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days."
"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."
"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order."