-John Burroughs
"The book of nature is like a page written over or printed upon with different sized characters and in many different languages, interlined and cross-lined, and with a great variety of marginal notes and references. There is coarse print and fine print; there are obscure signs and hieroglyphics. We all read the large type more or less appreciatively, but only the students and lovers of nature read the fine lines and the footnotes. It is a book which he reads best who goes most slowly or even tarries long by the way...only the pedestrian, the saunterer, with eyes in his head and love in his heart, turns every leaf and peruses every line."
-John Burroughs
"Human and artificial sounds and objects thrust themselves upon us; they are within our sphere, so to speak: but the life of nature we must meet halfway; it is shy, withdrawn, and blends itself with a vast neutral background. We must be initiated; it is an order the secrets of which are well guarded."
-John Burroughs
“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
-Annie Dillard
Works Cited
Burroughs, John. "The Art of Seeing Things." American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. Ed. Bill McKibben. New York: Library of America, 2008. Print.
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007. Print.