The mountains are calling and I must go.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best He ever planted.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown; for going out, I found, was really going in.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
Good luck and Good work for the happy mountain raindrops, each one of them a high waterfall in itself, descending from the cliffs and hollows of the clouds to the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, out of the sky-thunder into the thunder of the falling rivers
—John Muir
Topics: Water
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.
—John Muir
Topics: Nature
The beauty and completeness of a wild apple tree living its own life in the woods is heartily acknowledged by all those who have been so happy as to form its acquaintance. The fine wild piquancy of its fruit is unrivaled, but in the great question of quantity as human food wild apples are found wanting. Man, therefore, takes the tree from the woods, manures and prunes and grafts, plans and guesses, adds a little of this and that, selects and rejects, until apples of every conceivable size and softness are produced, like nut galls in response to the irritating punctures of insects. Orchard apples are to me the most eloquent words that culture had ever spoken, but they reflect no imperfection upon Nature’s spicy crab.
—John Muir
Topics: Nature
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.
—John Muir
Topics: Death
No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movement of water, or gardening—still all is Beauty!
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
I am learning to live close to the lives of my friends without ever seeing them. No miles of any measurement can separate your soul from mine.
—John Muir
Topics: Friendship
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
—John Muir
Topics: Beauty, Solitude, Wilderness
One can make a day of any size, and regulate the rising and the setting of his own sun and the brightness of its shining.
—John Muir
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.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
When a man plants a tree, he plants himself.
—John Muir
Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waiting… wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us, but in us. The rivers flow not passed, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
Sequoias, kings of their race, growing close together like grass in a meadow, poised their brave domes and spires in the sky three hundred feet above the ferns and lilies that enameled the ground; towering serene through the long centuries, preaching God’s forestry fresh from heaven
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
How deep our sleep last night in the mountains here, beneath the trees and stars, hushed by solemn-sounding waterfalls and many small soothing voices in sweet accord whispering peace!
And our first pure mountain day, warm, calm, cloudless,—how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild! I can scarcely remember its beginning. Along the river, over the hills, in the ground, in the sky, spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm, new life, new beauty, unfolding, unrolling in glorious exuberant extravagance,—new birds in their nests, new winged creatures in the air, and new leaves, new flowers, spreading, shining, rejoicing everywhere.
—John Muir
Topics: 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.
—John Muir
Topics: Memory
In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
—John Muir
Topics: Walking
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has its glorious starry firmament for a roof. In such places, standing alone on the mountaintop, it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make—leaves and moss like the marmots and the birds, or tents or piled stone—we all dwell in a house of one room—the world with the firmament for its roof—are all sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
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
If my soul could get away from this so-called prison, be granted all the list of attributes generally bestowed on spirits, my first ramble on spirit-wings would not be among the volcanoes of the moon. Nor should I follow the sunbeams to their sources in the sun. I should hover about the beauty of our own good star. I should not go moping around the tombs, nor around the artificial desolation of men. I should study Nature’s laws in all their crossings and unions: I should follow magnetic streams to their source and follow the shores of our magnetic oceans. I should go among the rays of the aurora, and follow them to their beginnings, and study their dealings and communions with other powers and expressions of matter. And I should go to the very center of our globe and read the whole splendid page from the beginning.
—John Muir
Topics: Beginnings, Wilderness
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; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
—John Muir
Topics: Authority, Wilderness, Security
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
—John Muir
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.
—John Muir
Topics: Gardening
Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question “Why was it made?” goes on and on, with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom on the mountains. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness, Nature, Autumn, Fresh
To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
I have a low opinion of books; they are but piles of stones set up to show travelers where other minds have been, or at best smoke signals to call attention… One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cart load of books.
—John Muir
Topics: Wilderness
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
—John Muir
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Alexander Graham Bell Scottish-born American Inventor
- E. O. Wilson American Sociobiologist
- B. C. Forbes Scottish-born American Journalist
- Charles Darwin British Naturalist
- John Witherspoon American Clergyman
- Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
- Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
- Rachel Carson American Biologist
- Aldo Leopold American Conservationist
- Carl Sagan American Astronomer
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