We are beginning to see that money, after all, is not the main thing. The real values cannot be bought and sold.
Interpretation
Money is not the most important aspect of life; true value lies in intangible qualities.
In this quote, John Burroughs emphasizes the idea that material wealth does not equate to true worth or happiness. He argues that the most valuable aspects of life, such as love, friendship, and personal fulfillment, cannot be purchased with money, highlighting the importance of prioritizing these intangible values over financial pursuits.
In practice
During a financial literacy workshop, one might say this quote to shift the focus to the importance of relationships.
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.
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
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.
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.
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.
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
we must not blame our poor symbols if they take forms that seem trivial to us, or absurd, ... however paltry they may be; the nature of our life alone has determined their forms.
I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.
The truth is a young maiden as modest as she is beautiful, and therefore she is always seen cloaked.
There is no way of salvation except through the cross of Christ.
The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent.
What is truth? A difficult question; but I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the 'voice within' tells you.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.