John Muir Quotes
John Muir Quotes
Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.
3694When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
4667 This time it is real - all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!
3265 Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.
4083 John Muir, Earth - planet, Universe
[Muir's home address, as inscribed on the inside front cover of his first field journal]
2306 Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.
4064 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. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
4125 The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
2075 Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
1429 Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity
2925 The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
4233 The mountains are calling and I must go.
3526 I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
4200 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 gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
3921 We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.
1339 Going to the woods is going home.
3905 Most people are on the world, not in it - have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them - undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.
4036 Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.
1277 There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.
3304 How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
2010 There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties
4589 I was awakened by a tremendous earthquake, and though I hadn ever before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble earthquake! A noble earthquake" feeling sure I was going to learn something.
2997 These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.
3422 What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!
3575 Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light - a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.
3692 Nothing truly wild is unclean.
1047 Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.
3581 When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
3026 Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.
1005 Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.
3774 I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news
2407 Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.
4507 Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike.
1752 Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.
4744 