John James Audubon was an American ornithologist, naturalist, hunter, and painter. He painted, catalogued, and described the birds of North America.
More on Wikipedia…
(47 quotes found)
“I must put myself in a train of doing... and thereby keep the machine in motion.”
John James Audubon
“Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.”
“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.”
“As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature.”
“A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.”
“I feel fully decided that we should all go to Europe together and to work as if an established Partnership for Life consisting of Husband Wife and Children.”
“After all, I long to be in America again, nay, if I can go home to return no more to Europe, it seems to me that I shall ever enjoy more peace of mind, and even Physical comfort than I can meet with in any portion of the world beside.”
“Would it be possible that I should not in any degree succeed? I can scarcely think so. Ah delusive hope, how much further wilt thou lead me?”
“I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.”
“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.”