John Muir Quotes
Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts . . .
Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods.
Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
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.
I wish I knew where I was going. Doomed to be carried of the spirit into the wilderness, I suppose. I wish I could be more moderate in my desires, but I cannot, and so there is no rest.
Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society.
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.
The moon is looking down into the canyon, and how marvelously the great rocks kindle to her light! Every dome, and brow, and swelling boss touched by her white rays, glows as if lighted with snow.
Of all the fire mountains which like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.
Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.
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.
The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.
One can make a day of any size and regulate the rising and setting of his own sun and the brightness of its shining.
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!
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.
Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old.
Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.
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.
Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get - -people,storms, guardian angels, or sheep.
Rivers flow not past, but through us; tingling, vibrating, exciting every cell and fiber in our bodies, making them sing and glide.
It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple in autumn, when the sun gold is richest
I...am always glad to touch the living rock again and dip my hand in the high mountain air.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.
