Explore Quotes by John James Audubon

I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could.

Great men show politeness in a particular way; a smile suffices to assure you that you are welcome, and keep about their avocations as if you were a member of the family.

The Golden Eagle, which has universally been considered as a bird of most extraordinary powers of flight, is in my estimation little more than a sluggard, though its wings are long and ample.

In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests.

Almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day.

During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.

On landing at New York I caught the yellow fever by walking to the bank at Greenwich to get the money to which my father's letter of credit entitled me. The kind man who commanded the ship that brought me from France, whose name was a common one, John Smith, took particular charge of me, removed me to Morristown, N. J., and placed me under the care of two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding - house. To their skilful and untiring ministrations I may safely say I owe the prolongation of my life.

On the 17th of May, the Delos put out to sea. I was immediately affected with sea-sickness, which, however, lasted but a short time. I remained on deck constantly, forcing myself to exercise.

If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.

The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear.

My drawings at first were made altogether in watercolors, but they wanted softness and a great deal of finish.

Mathematics was hard, dull work, I thought; geography pleased me more. For my other studies, as well as for dancing, I was quite enthusiastic.

I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.