John Burroughs Quotes

When you hear buzz around the beehive, you know they're making honey in there.

The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimenting her to call her a queen and invest her with regal authority, yet she is a superb creature and looks every inch a queen.

Growing up, I was a self-loathing Igor who carried the queen's books. My job was to be the sarcastic sherpa, quietly providing the farce and adoration, then becoming part of the wall when cued.

Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places - at the foot of the cross, and in the grave.

You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.

Most people don't have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don't know anything about.

Protocol may be defined as the code of etiquette which protects royalty from the competition of intellectual and social superiors.

Once you've left the concept of family, you've left the concept of kingdom

What did it mean to be called “lord”? I’ll assume you’ve never had the honor, since I doubt any of you happen to be British royalty. (And, if by chance you are, then let me say, “Hello, Your Majesty! Welcome to my stupid book. Can I borrow some cash?”)

The King is in his Tower, eating bread and honey. The Breakers in the basement, making all the money.

Common men should esteem learning as silver, noble men prize it as gold, and princes as jewels.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.

Kings live in Palaces, and Pigs in sties, And youth in Expectation. Youth is wise.

Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.

I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King's son.

Just as the queen bee, the highest-ranking, peerless creature of her hive, is surrounded by lowly drones to please her, whereas the workers produce honey, the same way is the one who sits on the throne an equal only to himself, and no one's companion.

The confused mass of rules of conduct called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters, before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunderbolts of heaven.

A man is a man, on a throne or in a pigsty.

History records the names of royal bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat.

Sydney, I'm so happy to see you again. If there's anything I can do for you, please let me know. And you must be Neil." "Your majesty." Neil swept her a bow so low that his forehead touched the ground. Above him, Adrian rolled his eyes. "Easy there, Lancelot," Adrian said. "I don't think bowing is required when she's in jeans and bunny slippers.

Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them.

Son--they say there isn't any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose.

I left England when I was four because I found out I could never be King.

There can only be one king.

The little bee returns with evening's gloom, To join her comrades in the braided hive, Where, housed beside their might honey-comb, They dream their polity shall long survive.