Everett Ruess Quotes

But then, I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.

I was sorry, though, that our intimacy, like many things that are and will be, had to die with a dying fall. I do not greatly mind endings, for my life is made up of them, but sometimes they come too soon or too late, and sometimes they leave feeling of regret as of an old mistake or an indirect futility.

I have seen almost more beauty than I can bear.

Say that i starved, that i was lost and weary
that i was burned and blinded by the desert sun
footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases,
lonely and wet and cold, but that i kept my dream!

...while I am alive, I intend to live.

I like to be perfectly open and sincere, and yet it is impossible to be sincere to all of one's self at once, so for the deepest understanding one must seek those with whom one can be most truly one's self and never be blind to the ineffable drollery of it all.

Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness:
Swaggers and softly creeps between the mountain peaks; I shall listen long to the sea's brave music; I shall sing my song above the shriek of desert winds.

Happiness lies in a large measure of self-forgetfulness, either in work . . . or in the love of others. ♥

I'm drunk on the fiery elixer of beauty.

I'll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.

As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty ...
Even from your scant description, I know that I could not bear the routine and humdrum of the life that you are forced to lead. I don't think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax.

I suppose a great and soul filling love is perhaps the greatest experience a man may have, but it is such a rarity as to be almost negligible.

I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the street car and the star sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.

I thought that there were two rules in life - never count the cost, and never do anything unless you can do it wholeheartedly. Now is the time to live.

As to this half-baked pother about my always feeling inferior in the presence of college graduates, that fear is groundless too. I am not nonplussed in the presence of anybody, and I am seldom at a loss with anyone I am interested in.