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John Muir
148 quotes
“Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With inexpressible delight you wade out into the grassy sun-lake, feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty. And notwithstanding the scene is so impressively spiritual, and you seem dissolved in it, yet everything about you is beating with warm, terrestrial, human love, delightfully substantial and familiar.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Glacier Meadows of the Sierra", Scribner's Monthly, volume XVII, number 4 (February 1879) pages 478-483 (at page 479); modified slightly and reprinted in The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 7: The Glacier Me…
“It is generally supposed that complete pleasure of this kind, permeating one's very flesh and bones, unfits the student for scientific pursuits in which cool judgment and observation are required. But the effect is just the opposite. Instead of producing a dissipated condition, the mind is fertilized and stimulated and developed like sun-fed plants.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Concerning the Sugar Pine:] The wood is deliciously fragrant, and fine in grain and texture; it is of a rich cream-yellow, as if formed of condensed sunbeams.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Concerning the Hemlock Spruce, now called Mountain Hemlock:] I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of this favorite spruce. … The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; bright streams from the snow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthus spreads precious carpets in its shade. But the best words only hint its charms. Come to the mountains and see.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true; but our own little comes and goes are only little more than tree-wavings — many of them not so much.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Wind Storm in the Forests of the Yuba", Scribner's Monthly, volume XVII, number 1 (November 1878) pages 55-59 (at page 59); modified slightly and reprinted in The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 10: A Wind-Sto…
“[Concerning the Water Ouzel, now called American Dipper:] In a general way his music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil pools.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 13: The Water-Ouzel
“Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every-day beauty.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. … So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and 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.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God never made an ugly landscape. All that the sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the sane and free it will hardly seem necessary to cross the continent in search of wild beauty, however easy the way, for they find it in abundance wherever they chance to be.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God's wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. If you are business-tangled, and so burdened by duty that only weeks can be got out of the heavy-laden year … give a month at least to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will indefinitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal. Nevermore will time seem short or long, and cares will never again fall heavily on you, but gently and kindly as gifts from heaven.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had built a little cabin in Yosemite, and for convenience in getting water, and for the sake of music and society, I led a small stream from Yosemite Creek into it. Running along the side of the wall it was not in the way, and it had just fall enough to ripple and sing in low, sweet tones, making delightful company, especially at night when I was lying awake. Then a few frogs came in and made merry with the stream, — and one snake.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Storms of every sort, torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, "convulsions of nature," etc., however mysterious and lawless at first sight they may seem, are only harmonious notes in the song of creation, varied expressions of God's love.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fountains and Streams of the Yosemite National Park", The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXXXVII, number 519 (January 1901) pages 556-565 (at page 565); reprinted in Our National Parks (1901), chapter 8: The Fountains and…
“Little, however, is to be learned in confused, hurried tourist trips, spending only a poor noisy hour in a branded grove with a guide. You should go looking and listening alone on long walks through the wild forests and groves in all the seasons of the year. In the spring the winds are balmy and sweet... . In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness... . In the autumn the sighing of the winds is softer than ever... . Winter comes suddenly, arrayed in storms.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many lawless mysteries vanish, and harmonies take their places.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have known many dogs, and many a story I could tell of their wisdom and devotion; but to none do I owe so much as to Stickeen. At first the least promising and least known of my dog-friends, he suddenly became the best known of them all. Our storm-battle for life brought him to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Surely all God's people, however serious and savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes, — all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), chapter 5: Young Hunters
“All Nature's wildness tells the same story: the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort, each and all, are the orderly, beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Three Adventures in the Yosemite", The Century Magazine volume LXXXIII, number 5 (March 1912) pages 656-661 (at page 661); modified slightly and reprinted in The Yosemite (1912), chapter 4: Snow Banners
“If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Yosemite (1912), chapter 12: How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
“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.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Yosemite (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
“This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest … in our magnificent National Parks … Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Yosemite (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
“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. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Yosemite (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Travels in Alaska (1915), chapter 1: Puget Sound and British Columbia
“My fire was in all its glory about midnight, and, having made a bark shed to shelter me from the rain and partially dry my clothing, I had nothing to do but look and listen and join the trees in their hymns and prayers.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Travels in Alaska (1915), chapter 2: Alexander Archipelago and the Home I Found in Alaska
“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made. That this is still the morning of creation. That mountains, long conceived, are now being born, brought to light by the glaciers, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alaska Glaciers: Graphic Description of the Yosemite of the Far Northwest", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 5 of 11 part series "Notes of a Naturalist") dated 7 September 1879, published 27 September 1879; re…
“When night was drawing near, I ran down the flowery slopes exhilarated, thanking God for the gift of this great day. The setting sun fired the clouds. All the world seemed new-born. Every thing, even the commonest, was seen in new light and was looked at with new interest as if never seen before.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Travels in Alaska (1915), chapter 7: Glenora Peak
“[Concerning an aurora, "vivid crimson … indescribably rich and deep":] The white, rayless light of morning, seen when I was alone amid the peaks of the California Sierra, had always seemed to me the most telling of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. But here the mountains themselves were made divine, and declared His glory in terms still more impressive.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Travels in Alaska (1915), chapter 9: The Discovery of Glacier Bay
“The very thought of this Alaska garden is a joyful exhilaration. … Out of all the cold darkness and glacial crushing and grinding comes this warm, abounding beauty and life to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation finer and finer.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Travels in Alaska (1915), chapter 16: Glacier Bay
“Fain would I describe the glories of those months in the ice-world — the beautiful and terrible network of crevasses, the clustering pinnacles, the thousand streams ringing and gurgling in azure channels cut in the living body of the glacier, the glorious radiance of the sunbeams falling on crystal dale and hill, the rosy glow of the dawn and sunset, the march of the clouds on the mountains, and the mysterious splendor of the auroras when the nights grow long, etc., etc., etc. But this would require a volume, while here I have only space to add — Go to Alaska, go and see.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1893 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alaska", The American Geologist volume XI, number 5 (May 1893) pages 287-299 (at page 299)
“One touch of nature makes all the world kin.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Cruise of the Corwin (1917), chapter 3: Siberian Adventures
“Keep close to Nature's heart … and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: statement by Muir as remembered by Samuel Hall Young in Alaska Days with John Muir (1915), chapter 7
“[When asked about the word "hike":] I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains — not hike! Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It's a beautiful word. Away back in the middle ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, 'A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: statement by Muir as remembered by Albert W. Palmer in The Mountain Trail and its Message (1911), pages 27-28
“I don't think Mr. Harriman is very rich. He has not as much money as I have. I have all I want and Mr. Harriman has not.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: memorial volume Edward Henry Harriman (1911)
“The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: attributed to Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 331
“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 (1838–1914) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Mrs. J.D. Hooker (19 September 1911); published in The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 17, II; and in John Muir's Last Journey, edited by Michael P. Branch (Island Press, 2001), page 67
“Most interesting forest I have seen in my whole life.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: journal entry (24 October 1911) concerning Araucaria braziliensis in southern Brazil; published in John Muir's Last Journey, edited by Michael P. Branch (Island Press, 2001), page 88