John Muir Quotations

The mountains are calling and I must go.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow-mountaineers. Nature as a poet, an enthusiastic workingman, becomes more and more visible the farther and higher we go...

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

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

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity...

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

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

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. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.

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!

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.

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 snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries.

Come to the woods, for here is rest.

Doubly happy, however, is the man whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below

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

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

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

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.

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.

Certainly this Joaquin Canyon is the most remarkable in many ways of all I have entered.

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra.

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.

The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness

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

As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".

Hiking - I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."

The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains.

In God's wildness lies the hope of the world-the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.

There are no accidents in Nature,

Going into the woods, is going home

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

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

There are no accidents in Nature. Every motion of the constantly shifting bodies in the world is timed to the occasion for some definite, fore-ordered end. The flowers blossom in obedience to the same law that marks the course of constellations, and the song of a bird is the echo of a universal symphony. Nature is one, and to me the greatest delight of observation and study is to discover new unities in this all-embracing and eternal harmony.

Look up and down and round about you.!

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

So extraordinary is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees...

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

But to gain a perfect view, one must go yet further, over a curving brow to a slight shelf on the extreme brink.

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

The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.

In God's wildness lies the hope of the world.

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Here grow the wallflower and the violet. The squirrel will come and sit upon your knee, the logcock will wake you in the morning. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains.

God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.

Going to the mountains is going home.

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

Yosemite Park... None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.

Nature had gathered her choicest treasures , to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her

Wander a whole summer if you can. Time will not be taken from the sum of life. Instead of shortening, it will definitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal.

One can make a day of any size and regulate the rising and setting of his own sun and the brightness of its shining.

These beautiful days ... do not exist as mere pictures - maps hung upon the walls of memory to brighten at times when touched by association or will ... They saturate themselves into every part of the body and live always.

I have a low opinion of books; they are but piles of stones set up to show coming travelers where other minds have been, or at best signal smokes to call attention. No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains. As well seek to warm the naked and frostbitten by lectures on caloric and pictures of flame. One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books.

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.

Wander here a whole summer, if you can ... Thousands of wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted

Not blind opposition to progress,but opposition to blind progress...

Look! Nature is overflowing with the grandeur of God!

The world, we are told, was made especially for man - a presumption not supported by all the facts... Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?

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.

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

Wilderness is a necessity ... They will see what I meant in time. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ, of course, but the germ will grow.

I never saw a discontented tree.

When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell... I asked the boulders I met, whence they came and whither they were going.

I am well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the mountains.

Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.

As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.

I like to walk, touch living Mother Earth—bare feet best, and thrill every step. Used to envy happy reptiles that had advantage of so much body in contact with earth, bosom to bosom. [We] live with our heels as well as head and most of our pleasure comes in that way.

Nothing truly wild is unclean.

I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in "creation's dawn." The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day.

Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.

Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.

Wilderness is a necessity... there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls...

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,-a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.‎

I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer.

The battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part of the universal battle between right and wrong.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

I might have become a millionaire, but I chose to become a tramp.

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 lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends. ... You cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain, sky, and mountains ray beauty which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming at a camp-fire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature.

No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them.

None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.

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.

One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.

The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains - mountain dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature's workshops.

Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts . . .

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 the mountain-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 any track.

Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.

Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.

The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men.

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.