Wednesday, June 30, 2010

John Burroughs Q of the W: Round 2

Vol. V, p.56 [June 19, 1884]
It is a greater consolation to me to know that the universe is governed by unalterable law, than that it is subject to any capricious and changeable will. I like to know that what we call God is without variable-ness or shadow of turning. We know now what to depend on. Strict justice is and must be done to every creatur else life and nature would miscarry. I ask but justice, yes, I demand it, and let me not flinch and whimper.
















Vol. V, p.65 [July 18, 1884]
- Ours is a mechanical age. Its voice is the steam whistle loud, dissonant, hideous.






Vol. V, p.74 [July 22, 1884]
- Some people are not susceptible of much culture. Some of the most learned men have little culture; it all stops with the memory and does not reach the spirit. The person who remembers the most of the book he reads, is probably influenced the least by it; its words stick in his memory, but its spirit fails to sink into his heart.



















Vol. V, p.79 [July, 1884]
- The newspaper gives currency to all manner of flippancies, levities, irreverences, ephemeries; its tendency is undoubtedly to beget a shallow, gossipy, loud, tonguey, irreverent type of mind. In the course of generations, the most serious consequences must flow from it - elephantiasia of the lip and tongue, metaphorically speaking.


















Vol. V, p.78 [July, 1884]
- Up to certain grade of intelligence, I consider it a good sign if a man belongs to the Church. Then there is a higher grade in which belonging to the Church implies a certain hypocrisy, or insincerity. An intelligent, disinterested seeker of the truth cannot be found inside the Church in these days.




















Vol. V, p.80 [July, 1884]
Rousseau was in many ways like a bee drowned in his own honey. His imagination swamped him.

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