Quotes from John Muir

Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built. And, rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Man has injured every animal he has touched.

To sit in solitude, to think in solitude with only the music of the stream and the cedar to break the flow of silence, there lies the value of wilderness.

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

The grand show is eternal It is always sunrise somewhere

The mountains are calling and I must go.

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 clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

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.

In the eternal youth of Nature, you may renew your own.

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings.

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life...as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures.

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.

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

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

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.

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

There are no accidents in Nature.