John Muir Quotes

Longing for the mountains ~ John Muir

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

Rocks and waters, etc., are words of God, and so are men. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. ~ John Muir

But no punishment, however sure and severe, was of any avail against the attraction of the fields and woods. It had other uses, developing memory, etc., but in keeping us at home it was of no use at all. ~ John Muir

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. ~ John Muir

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. ~ John Muir

In this silent, serene wilderness the weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace. ~ John Muir

There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect. ~ John Muir

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

Everything in Nature called destruction must be creation-a change from beauty to beauty. ~ John Muir

Ink cannot tell the glow that lights me at this moment in turning to the mountains. I feel strong [enough] to leap Yosemite walls at a bound. ~ John Muir

Full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity. ~ John Muir

God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons. ~ John Muir

Never while anything is left of me shall this ... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike. ~ John Muir

The power of imagination is infinite. ~ John Muir

In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government ~ John Muir

Chastity and moral purity were qualities McCandless mulled over long and often. Indeed, one of the books found in the bus with his remains was a collection of stories that included Tol¬stoy's "The Kreutzer Sonata," in which the nobleman-turned-ascetic denounces "the demands of the flesh." Several such passages are starred and highlighted in the dog-eared text, the margins filled with cryptic notes printed in McCandless's distinc¬tive hand. And in the chapter on "Higher Laws" in Thoreau's Walden, a copy of which was also discovered in the bus, McCand¬less circled "Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it."
We Americans are titillated by sex, obsessed by it, horrified by it. When an apparently healthy person, especially a healthy young man, elects to forgo the enticements of the flesh, it shocks us, and we leer. Suspicions are aroused.
McCandless's apparent sexual innocence, however, is a corol¬lary of a personality type that our culture purports to admire, at least in the case of its more famous adherents. His ambivalence toward sex echoes that of celebrated others who embraced wilderness with single-minded passion - Thoreau (who was a lifelong virgin) and the naturalist John Muir, most prominently - to say nothing of countless lesser-known pilgrims, seekers, mis¬fits, and adventurers. Like not a few of those seduced by the wild, McCandless seems to have been driven by a va ~ Jon Krakauer

So also there are tides and floods in the affairs of men, which in some are slight and may be kept within bounds, but in others they overmaster everything. ~ John Muir

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. ~ John Muir

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

Lie down among the pines for a while, then get to plain pure white love-work ... to help humanity and other mortals and the Lord. ~ John Muir

My meals were easily made, for they were all alike and simple, only a cupful of tea and bread. ~ John Muir

Many of Nature's finest lessons are to be found in her storms, and if careful to keep in right relations with them, we may go safely abroad with them, rejoicing in the grandeur and beauty of their works and ways. ~ John Muir

You know that I have not lagged behind in the work of exploring our grand wilderness, and in calling everybody to come and enjoy the thousand blessings they have to offer. ~ John Muir

In every country the mountains are fountains, not only of rivers but of men. Therefore we all are born mountaineers, the offspring of rock and sunshine. ~ John Muir

Bread without butter or coffee without milk is an awful calamity, as if everything before being put in our mouth must first be held under a cow. ~ John Muir

But we are governed more than we know, and most when we are wildest. ~ John Muir

When I was a child in Scotland, I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately, around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness... ~ John Muir

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

Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings. ~ John Muir

When I first caught sight of (Mount Shasta) over the braided folds of the Sacramento Valley I was fifty miles away and afoot, alone and weary. Yet all my blood turned to wine, and I have not been weary since. ~ John Muir

I'd rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains. ~ John Muir

Perhaps the profession of doing good may be full, but every body should be kind at least to himself. Take a course of good water and air, and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you. Some have strange, morbid fears as soon as they find themselves with Nature, even in the kindest and wildest of her solitudes, like very sick children afraid of their mother-as if God were dead and the devil were king. ~ John Muir

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. ~ John Muir

I suppose we need not go mourning the buffaloes. In the nature of things, they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. ~ John Muir

... their eager, childlike attention was refreshing to see as compared with the decent, deathlike apathy of weary civilized people, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and care and poor, shallow comfort. ~ John Muir

The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark. ~ John Muir

Every natural object is a conductor of divinity and only by coming into contact with them ... may we be filled with the Holy Ghost. ~ John Muir

Every good thing great and small needs defense ~ John Muir

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. ~ John Muir

The United States government has always been proud of the welcome it has extended to good men of every nation, seeking freedom and homes and bread. ~ John Muir

He was one of the most sincere tree-lovers I ever knew. About twenty years before his death he made choice of a plot in the Yosemite cemetery on the north side of the Valley, not far from the Yosemite Fall, and selecting a dozen or so of seedling sequoias in the Mariposa grove he brought them to the Valley and planted them around the spot he had chosen for his last rest. The ground there is gravelly and dry; by careful watering he finally nursed most of the seedlings into good, thrifty trees, and doubtless they will long shade the grave of their blessed lover and friend. ~ John Muir

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death ... 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, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. ~ John Muir

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

Going into the woods, is going home ~ John Muir

Man has injured every animal he has touched. ~ John Muir

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. ~ John Muir

The waving of a pine tree on the top of a mountain - a magic wand in Nature's hand - every devout mountaineer knows its power; but the marvelous beauty value of what the Scotch call a breckan in a still dell, what poet has sung this? ~ John Muir

So abundant and novel are the objects of interest in a pure wilderness that unless you are pursuing special studies it matters little where you go, or how often to the same place. Wherever you chance to be always seems at the moment of all places the best; and you feel that there can be no happiness in this world or in any other for those who may not be happy there. ~ John Muir

No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons. ~ John Muir

Better to toil blindly, beating every stone in turn for grains of gold, whether they contain any or not, than lie down in apathetic decay. ~ John Muir

How infinitely superior to our physical senses are those of the mind! ~ John Muir

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. ~ John Muir

Look! Nature is overflowing with the grandeur of God! ~ John Muir

When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world. ~ John Muir

Parks benefit everyone. And those (men) who approach nature with arrogance instead of reverence may fail to reap the rewards available to all who recognize that the journeys are those made with the mind, not the body.

'When a mountain is climbed, it is said to be conquered--(may) as well say a man is conquered when a fly (lands) on his head.'
-John Muir ~ Ron Lizzi

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. ~ John Muir

The radiance in some places is so great as to be fairly dazzling ... every crystal, every flower a window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the Creator. ~ John Muir

Divine love is the sublime boss of the universe. ~ John Muir

Lizards of every temper, style, and color dwell here, seemingly as happy and companionable as the birds and squirrels. ~ John Muir

The water in music the oar forsakes. The air in music the wing forsakes. All things in move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars. ~ John Muir

Sheep, like people, are ungovernable when hungry. ~ John Muir

I never have held death in contempt, though in the course of my explorations I have oftentimes felt that to meet one's fate on a noble mountain, or in the heart of a glacier, would be blessed as compared with death from disease, or from some shabby lowland accident. But the best death, quick and crystal-pure, set so glaringly open before us, is hard enough to face, even though we feel gratefully sure that we have already had happiness enough for a dozen lives. ~ John Muir

Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society ... ~ John Muir

The most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wilderness. ~ John Muir

We are in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us ... How glorious a conversion, so complete and wholesome it is, scarce memory enough of old bondage days left as a standpoint to view it from! In this newness of life we seem to have been so always ~ John Muir

In most mills, only the best portions of the best trees are used, while the ruins are left on the ground to feed great fires which kill much of what is left of the less desirable timber, together with the seedlings on which the permanence of the forest depends. ~ John Muir

Nature has always something rare to show us ... and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof. ~ John Muir

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

The making of the far-famed New York Central Park was opposed by even good men, with misguided pluck, perseverance, and ingenuity, but straight right won its way, and now that park is appreciated. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. ~ John Muir

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times. ~ John Muir

Look up and down and round about you.! ~ John Muir

It seems strange that visitors to Yosemite should be so little influenced by its novel grandeur, as if their eyes were bandanged and their ears stopped. Most of those I saw yesterday were looking down as if wholly unconscious of anything going on about them, while the sublime rocks were trembling with the tones of the mighty changing congregation of waters gathered from all the mountains round about, making music that might draw angels out of heaven ... God himself is preaching his sublimest water and stone sermons! ~ John Muir

Several times Muir was threatened with a successful business career, but each time he escaped again into the wilderness. ~ John Muir

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

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

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

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 ... ~ John Muir

Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get
people,storms, guardian angels, or sheep ... ~ John Muir

The groves and thickets of smaller trees are full of blooming evergreen vines. These vines are not arranged in separate groups, or in delicate wreaths, but in bossy walls and heavy, mound-like heaps and banks. Am made to feel that I am now in a strange land. I know hardly any of the plants, but few of the birds, and I am unable to see the country for the solemn, dark, mysterious cypress woods which cover everything. ~ John Muir

A little pure wildness is the one great present want, both of men and sheep. ~ John Muir

In our best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church and the mountains altars. ~ John Muir

How many hearts with warm, red blood in them are beating under cover of the woods, and how many teeth and eyes are shining? A multitude of animal people, intimately related to us, but of whose lives we know almost nothing, are as busy about their own affairs as we are about ours. ~ John Muir

How terribly downright must be the utterances of storms and earthquakes to those accustomed to the soft hypocrisies of society. ~ John Muir

When you tug at a single thing in the universe, you'll find its attached to everything else. ~ John Muir

It was the afternoon of the day and the afternoon of his life, and his course was now westward down all the mountains into the sunset. [speaking about Ralph Waldo Emerson] ~ John Muir

C. albus ... I think the very loveliest of all the lily family,- a spotless soul, plant saint, that every one must love and so be made better. It puts the wildest mountaineer on his good behavior. With this plant the whole world would seem rich though non other existed. ~ John Muir

Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old. ~ John Muir

The power of imagination makes us infinite. ~ John Muir

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need - not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment. ~ John Muir

Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions. ~ John Muir

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

The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat. ~ John Muir

They tell us that plants are not like man immortal, but are perishable-soul -less. I think that is something that we know exactly nothing about. ~ John Muir

Man and other civilized animals are the only creatures that ever become dirty. ~ John Muir

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature's forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle. ~ John Muir

I would say Gary Snyder, who is from my part of the world as a poet and environmental thinker, will be read just as Henry Thoreau as John Muir will continue to be read. ~ Robert Hass

As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist; as if our ways were God's ways ~ John Muir

I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring Godful beauty. ~ John Muir

Beauty beyond thought everywhere, beneath, above, made and being made forever. ~ John Muir