John Muir Quotes (43 Quotes)

Brought into right relationships with the wilderness, man would see that his appropriation of Earth's resourcesbeyond his personal needs would only bring imbalance and begat ultimate loss and poverty by all.

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snowflowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries.

The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

Of all the fire mountains which like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.

Most people are on the world, not in it. - have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them undiffused, separate, andrigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere the dew is never all dried at once a shower is forever falling vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and glowing, on sea and continues and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home that wildness isa necessity and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.

keep in view the common good of the people for all time.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life with everything in place.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it ... So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.

One may as well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, and of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able menwhose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. Andfew destroyers of trees ever plant any nor can planting avail much towardrestoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousandyears to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are stillstanding in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mightyforests of the Sierra.

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes,the heart of the people is always right.

The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with allother stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

Men use care in purchasing a horse, and are neglectful in choosing friends

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

Look Nature is overflowing with the grandeur of God.

grandest special temple of nature I was ever permitted to enter.

Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof In such places standing alone on themountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone we all dwell in a house of one room the world with the firmament for its roof and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving anytrack.

To some, beauty seems but an accident of creation to Muir it was the very smile of God.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.