Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
John BurroughsRead
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the symbolic and inspirational qualities of birds in poetry.
John Burroughs suggests that birds embody intense life and vitality, serving as powerful symbols for poets. Their physical attributes and lively nature inspire creative expression, representing freedom, creativity, and the beauty of life.
Themes
BirdPoetrySymbolInspirationLifeNature
In practice
Example use cases
A writer could use this quote in a speech about the role of nature in inspiring creativity.
More from John Burroughs
All quotes →Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.
John BurroughsRead
Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to nature because he is freer and his mind more at leisure.
John BurroughsRead
Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their lives depend more upon these special powers than his does; but he can outwit them all because he has the resourcefulness of reason and is at home in many different fields.
John BurroughsRead
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
John BurroughsRead
Writing is reporting what we saw after the vision has left us. It is catching the fish which the tide has left far up on our shores in the low and depressed places.
John BurroughsRead
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