John Burroughs Quotes

A cylinder of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere is of equal weight with a cylinder of water about 33 feet high.

It becomes a giant's task to compute the result when the effect of cross seas, wind at all angles and ever varying force, arched surfaces, head resistance, ratio of weight to area, and the intelligence of the guiding power crop up.

Gravitation is, so far, not understandable in terms of other phenomena.

The true scientist no longer attempts to disprove the pull of gravity, or the rotation of the earth, or the motion of heavenly bodies, or the sequence of the seasons, or man's need of food and water, or the function of the heart.

Is it a surprise that into the vessel, in which the mercury has no inclination and no repugnance, not even the slightest, to being there, it should enter and should rise in a column high enough to make equilibrium with the weight of the external air which forces it up?

You know how you put peanut butter on a piece of bread and the bread falls - it never falls on the bread side down, it always falls peanut butter side down. That's because of gravity.

All things want to float.

The light works," he said, indicating the window, "the gravity works," he said, dropping a pencil on the floor. "Anything else we have to take our chances with.

We all know we fall. Newton's discovery was that the moon falls, too-and by the same rule that we do.

Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air Reach to its rest, and fall.

What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where you can find it.

Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea.

It is true that water will flow indifferently to east and west, but will it flow equally well up and down? Human nature is disposed toward goodness, just as water tends to flow downwards. There is no water but flows downwards, and no man but shows his tendency to be good. Now, by striking water hard, you may splash it higher than your forehead, and by damming it, you may make it go uphill. But, is that the nature of water? It is external force that causes it to do so. Likewise, if a man is made to do what is not good, his nature is being similarly forced.

The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.

Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction - up, down, sideways - by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel.

Things fall apart, it's scientific.

It must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first astronomers, that the fall of an apple should assist in explaining the motions of the moon.

A fall from such a height is rarely straight downwards.

Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.

A little bird told me that jumping is easy and the falling is fun, right up until you hit sidewalk shivering and stunned.

Relativity. Gravity. Quantum. Electrodynamics. Evolution. Each of these theories is true, whether or not you believe in them.

Our design, not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena.