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John Muir
148 quotes
“I did find Calypso — but only once, far in the depths of the very wildest of Canadian dark woods, near those high, cold, moss-covered swamps. … I felt as if I were in the presence of superior beings who loved me and beckoned me to come. I sat down beside them and wept for joy.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (1866); published as "The Calypso Borealis, Botanical Enthusiasm" in Boston Recorder, 21 December 1866; republished in Bonnie Johanna Gisel, Kindred & Related Spirits: The Letters of John Mui…
“John Muir, Earth — planet, Universe”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Muir's home address, as inscribed on the inside front cover of his first field journal, which started 1 July 1867
“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So extravagant 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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything is flowing — going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks … . While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature's warm heart.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole wilderness in unity and interrelation is alive and familiar … the very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. … No particle is ever wasted or worn out but eternally flowing from use to use.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: attributed to a Muir "manuscript" in Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 124
“There is at least a punky spark in my heart and it may blaze in this autumn gold, fanned by the King. Some of my grandfathers must have been born on a muirland for there is heather in me, and tinctures of bog juices, that send me to Cassiope, and oozing through all my veins impel me unhaltingly through endless glacier meadows, seemingly the deeper and danker the better.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (perhaps Autumn 1870); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 8: Yosemite, Emerson, and the Sequoias
“I will follow my instincts, be myself for good or ill, and see what will be the upshot. As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: attributed to a Muir "autobiographical notebook" in Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 144
“Man as he came from the hand of his Maker was poetic in both mind and body, but the gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed Nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1871 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to J.B. McChesney (19 September 1871)
“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. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1872 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Catharine Merrill, from New Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Valley (9 June 1872); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 9: Persons and Problems
“When I reached the [Yosemite] valley, all the rocks seemed talkative, and more lovable than ever. They are dear friends, and have warm blood gushing through their granite flesh; and I love them with a love intensified by long and close companionship. … I … bathed in the bright river, sauntered over the meadows, conversed with the domes, and played with the pines.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1872 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (December 1872); published as "A Geologist's Winter Walk", Overland Monthly, volume 10, number 4 (April 1873) pages 355-358 (at page 355); modified slightly and reprinted in Steep Trails (191…
“I ran home [from Cloud's Rest to Yosemite Valley] in the moonlight, with long, firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong. Down through the junipers — down through the firs; now in jet-shadows, now in white light; over sandy moraines and bare, clanking rock; past the huge ghost of South Dome, rising weird through the firs — past glorious Nevada — past the groves of Illilouette — through the pines of the valley; frost-crystals flashing all the sky beneath, as star-crystals on all the sky above. All of this mountain-bread for one day!”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1872 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (December 1872); published as "A Geologist's Winter Walk", Overland Monthly, volume 10, number 4 (April 1873) pages 355-358 (at page 358); modified slightly and reprinted in Steep Trails (191…
“I drifted about from rock to rock, from stream to stream, from grove to grove. Where night found me, there I camped. When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell. … I asked the boulders I met, whence they came and whither they were going.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1873 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Explorations in the Great Tuolumne Cañon", Overland Monthly, volume XI, number 2 (August 1873) pages 139-147 (at page 141); modified slightly and reprinted in John of the Mountains (1938), page 69
“I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in "creation's dawn." The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1873 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Explorations in the Great Tuolumne Cañon", Overland Monthly, volume XI, number 2 (August 1873) pages 139-147 (at page 143); modified and reprinted in John of the Mountains (1938), page 72
“Living artificially in towns, we are sickly, and never come to know ourselves.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1873 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Explorations in the Great Tuolumne Cañon", Overland Monthly, volume XI, number 2 (August 1873) pages 139-147 (at page 146); modified and reprinted in John of the Mountains (1938), page 77
“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1873 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to sister Sarah Muir Galloway (3 September 1873); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 10: Yosemite and Beyond
“The water in music the oar forsakes." The air in music the wing forsakes. All things move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (September 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents
“Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Muir's marginal note in volume I of Prose Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson (This volume is located at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. See Albert Saijo, "Me, Muir, and Sierra Nevada", in Rei…
“No one of the rocks seems to call me now, nor any of the distant mountains. Surely this Merced and Tuolumne chapter of my life is done.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (September 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents
“I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (7 October 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents
“I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (7 October 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents
“No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains to wildness, as that which declares that the world as made especially for the uses of men. Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wild Wool", Overland Monthly, volume 14, number 4 (April 1875) pages 361-366 (at page 364); modified slightly and reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 1
“Plants, animals, and stars are all kept in place, bridled along appointed ways, with one another, and through the midst of one another — killing and being killed, eating and being eaten, in harmonious proportions and quantities.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wild Wool", Overland Monthly, volume 14, number 4 (April 1875) pages 361-366 (at page 364); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 1
“How terribly downright must seem the utterances of storms and earthquakes to those accustomed to the soft hypocrisies of society.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Flood-Storm in the Sierra", Overland Monthly, volume 14, number 6 (June 1875) pages 489-496 (at page 494)
“I would advise sitting from morning till night under some willow bush on the river bank where there is a wide view. This will be "doing the valley" far more effectively than riding along trails in constant motion from point to point. The entire valley is made up of "points of interest.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Summer Flood of Tourists", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 1 of the 11 part series "Summering in the Sierra") dated 14 June 1875, published 22 June 1875; reprinted in John Muir: Summering in the Sierra, e…
“Going to the mountains is going home.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In the Sierra Forests", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 3 of the 11 part series "Summering in the Sierra") dated July 1875, published 3 August 1875; reprinted in John Muir: Summering in the Sierra, edited by …
“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 (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Fort Independence to Yosemite", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 6 of the 11 part series "Summering in the Sierra") dated September 1875, published 15 September 1875; reprinted in John Muir: Summering in …
“[I first climbed Half Dome on] one of those brooding days that come just between Indian summer and winter, when the clouds are like living creatures.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: South Dome", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 11 of the 11 part series "Summering in the Sierra") dated 10 November 1875, published 18 November 1875; reprinted in John Muir: Summering in the Sierra, edited by …
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mormon Lilies", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 4 of the 4 part series "Notes from Utah") dated July 1877, published 19 July 1877; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 9
“No portion of the world is so barren as not to yield a rich and precious harvest of divine truth.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Arctic Coal Mines — The Diomede Bay Islands", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 18 of 21 part series "Cruise of the Corwin") dated 25 August 1881, published 25 October 1881; reprinted in The Cruise of the Corwi…
“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.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to wife Louie (Louisa Wanda Strentzel) (July 1888); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 15: Winning a Competence
“By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs — now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mount Shasta" in Picturesque California (1888-1890) page 148; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 3
“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.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mount Shasta" in Picturesque California (1888-1890) page 165; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 5
“The view we enjoyed from the summit [of Mount Rainier] could hardly be surpassed in sublimity and grandeur; but one feels far from home so high in the sky, so much so that one is inclined to guess that, apart from the acquisition of knowledge and the exhilaration of climbing, more pleasure is to be found at the foot of the mountains than on their tops. Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Washington and the Puget Sound" in Picturesque California (1888-1890); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 20
“Happy will be the men who, having the power and the love and the benevolent forecast to [create a park], will do it. They will not be forgotten. The trees and their lovers will sing their praises, and generations yet unborn will rise up and call them blessed.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Basin of the Columbia River" in Picturesque California (1888-1890); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 22
“[Muir describes himself as] me the poetico-trampo-geologist-bot & ornith-natural etc etc —!—!—! !”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Robert Underwood Johnson, from Martinez (13 September 1889); published many times, often with more conventional spelling
“That memorable day died in purple and gold, and just as the last traces of the sunset faded in the west and the star-lilies filled the sky, the full moon looked down over the rim of the valley, and the great rocks, catching the silvery glow, came forth out of the dusky shadows like very spirits.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Rival of the Yosemite: The Cañon of the South Fork of King's River, California" The Century Magazine, volume XLIII, number 1 (November 1891) pages 77-97 (at page 86)
“Let our law-givers then make haste before it is too late to set apart this surpassingly glorious region for the recreation and well-being of humanity, and all the world will rise up and call them blessed.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Rival of the Yosemite: The Cañon of the South Fork of King's River, California" The Century Magazine, volume XLIII, number 1 (November 1891) pages 77-97 (at page 97)
“[Concerning the founding of the Sierra Club:] Hoping that we will be able to do something for wildness and make the mountains glad.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Henry Senger (22 May 1892)
“Those [forest] reserves are not merely for the convenience and benefit of the people near them, but they are the property of the nation and for its greatest good. It is unreasonable to suppose that they should be destroyed or imperiled for any local convenience, as a mere present to men engaged in one local industry.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: statement by Muir quoted in news report "Started for Alaska: Harriman Exploring Expedition in Portland" in the Portland Morning Oregonian, 31 May 1899, page 12, columns 1-5 (at column 4)
“Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries, the offspring of the sun and sea.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source