Quotes About Nature

Anche oggi tempo splendido, una di quelle gloriose giornate della Sierra in cui ci si sente come dissolti, assorbiti, spinti innanzi pulsanti, non si sa dove. La vita non pare né lunga né breve, non ci si preoccupa di risparmiare tempo o di affrettarsi più di quanto facciano alberi e stelle. Questa è la vera libertà, un buon surrogato mortale dell'immortalità.

I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was made for itself.

Ci sono anche alcuni ginepri (Juniperus occidentalis) piccoli e tozzi, dalla corteccia color cannella e il fogliame grigio, che se ne stanno per lo più solitari, aggrappati alla pietra battuta dal sole, al sicuro dal fuoco: gran montanaro, quest'albero, robusto, resistente a tutte le interperie, si nutre di sole e di neve e con questa dieta riesce a mantenersi in buona salute anche per un migliaio d'anni.

All the wilderness seems to be full of tricks and plans to drive and draw us up into God's Light.

Aside from mere money profit one would rather herd wolves than sheep.

In so wild and so beautiful a region your first day will be spent, every sight and sound novel and inspiring, and leading you far from yourself.

Some of the silly sheep got caught fast in a tangle of chaparral this morning, like flies in a spider's web, and had to be helped out. Carlo found them and tried to drive them from the trap by the easiest way. How far above sheep are intelligent dogs! No friend and helper can be more affectionate and constant than Carlo. The noble St. Bernard is an honor to his race.

Yet through all this stress the forest is maintained in marvelous beauty.

Though alligators and snakes naturally repel us, they are no mysterious evils. They dwell happily in these flowery wilds, are part of God's family, unfallen, un-depraved and cared for with the same species of tenderness and love as is bestowed on angels in heaven or saints on earth. A

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

Like everyone else, I was always fond of flowers, attracted by their external beauty and purity. Now my eyes wee opened to their inner beauty, all alike revealing glorious traces of the thoughts of God, and leading on and on into the infinite cosmos.

Thence a charming, wavering course is pursued still northward through the grandest scenery to Tahkou, Juneau, Chilcat, Glacier Bay, and Sitka, affording fine glimpses of the innumerable evergreen islands, the icy mountain-ranges of the coast, the forests, glaciers, etc. The round trip of two thousand miles is made in about twelve days, and costs about a hundred dollars:

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.

Nevertheless, again and again, in season and out of season, the question comes up, What are rattlesnakes good for? 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....Anyhow, they are all, head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life. -from the essay Yellowstone Park

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

We thought nothing of running right ahead ten or a dozen miles before turning back; for we knew nothing about taking time by the sun, and none of us had a watch in those days.

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.

Nevertheless, again and again, in season and our of season, the question comes up, What are rattlesnakes good for? As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist; as if our ways were Gods' ways.... Anyhow, they are all, head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life.

so much like wild beasts are baby boys, little fighting, biting, climbing pagans.

In the meantime, the wildest health and pleasure grounds accessible and available to tourists seeking escape from care and dust and early death are the parks and reservations of the West.

We are now in the mountains, and they are in us…

And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.

Could one of these Sequoia Kings come to town in all its godlike majesty so as to be strikingly seen and allowed to plead its own cause, there would never again be any lack of defenders.