The lure of happiness and the fear of pain . . . are the two forces which have through untold millenniums kept what we usually call life from destruction by the ever encroaching outside forces of destruction. Luther Burbank More Quotes by Luther Burbank More Quotes From Luther Burbank Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education. Luther Burbank butterfly animal children Less than fifteen per cent of the people do any original thinking on any subject. The greatest torture in the world for most people is to think. Luther Burbank people world thinking Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. Luther Burbank sunshine nature flower The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love. While I was conducting experiments to make spineless cacti, I often talked to the plants. . . . "You have nothing to fear," I would tell them. "You don't need your defensive thorns. I will protect you." Gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety. Luther Burbank secret love needs If you violate Nature's laws you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman. Luther Burbank environmental judging law Heredity is nothing but stored environment. Luther Burbank heredity-and-environment ancestry definitions I see humanity now as one vast plant, needing for its highest fulfillment only love, the natural blessings of the great outdoors, and intelligent crossing and selection. Luther Burbank grandchildren intelligent blessing Science is the only savior. Luther Burbank savior positive-atheism atheism The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. But while I cannot conceive of such a God, I do recognize the existence of a great universal power - a power which we cannot even begin to comprehend and might as well not attempt to. It may be a conscious mind, or it may not. I don't know. As a scientist I should like to know, but as a man, I am not so vitally concerned. Luther Burbank fear men ideas A flower is an educated weed. Luther Burbank weed nature flower Do not feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature... Do not terrify them in early life with the fear of an after-world. Never was a child made more noble and good by the fear of a hell. Luther Burbank fear giving children Let us read the Bible without the ill-fitting colored spectacles of theology, just as we read other books, using our judgment and reason. . . . Luther Burbank judgment book religion Do not feed children on a maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their souls drink in all that is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant surroundings ... Let nature teach them the lessons of good and proper living, combined with an abundance of well-balanced nourishment. Those children will grow to be the best men and women. Put the best in them by contact with the best outside. They will absorb it as a plant absorbs the sunshine and the dew. Luther Burbank sunshine sweet children Those who would legislate against the teaching of evolution should also legislate against gravity, electricity and the unreasonable velocity of light, and also, should introduce a clause to prevent the use of the telescope, the microscope and the spectroscope or any other instrument of precision which may in the future be invented, constructed or used for the discovery of truth. Luther Burbank light teaching discovery The time has come for honest men to denounce false teachers and attack false gods. Luther Burbank atheism teacher men Several of my young acquaintances are in their graves who gave promise of making happy and useful citizens and there is no question whatever that cigarettes alone were the cause of their destruction. No boy living would commence the use of cigarettes if he knew what a useless, soulless, worthless thing they would make of him. Luther Burbank boys science knowledge Science is knowledge arranged and classified according to truth, facts, and the general laws of nature. Luther Burbank laws-of-nature law facts The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love. Luther Burbank garden love knowledge I have seen myself lose intolerance, narrowness, bigotry, complacence, pride and a whole bushel-basket of other intellectual vices through my contact with Nature and with men. And when you take weeds out of a garden it gives you room to grow flowers. So, every time I lost a little self-satisfaction, or arrogance, I could plant some broadness or love of my own in its place, and after a while the garden of my mind began to bloom and be fragrant and I found myself better equipped for my work and more useful to others as a consequence. Luther Burbank weed flower pride We must return to nature and nature's god. Luther Burbank environmental return nature
