When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!
Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.
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.
Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest 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
The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
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
We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.
Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.
Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.
There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties
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.
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.
What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!
Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light — a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.
Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
It seems supernatural, but only because it is not understood.
Come to the woods, for here is rest, …climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
If people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.
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.
Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.
Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.
Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.
The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
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.
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.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings: Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into flowers the winds will blow their freshness into you and the storms their energy and cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
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.
Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!
Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.
In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.
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.
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.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness. Heaven knows that John the Baptist was not more eager to get all his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of God’s mountains.
Man seems to be the only animal whose food soils him, making necessary much washing and shield-like bibs and napkins. Moles living in the earth and eating slimy worms are yet as clean as seals or fishes, whose lives are one perpetual wash.
There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.
Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.
To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.
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.
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?
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.