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. John Muir More Quotes by John Muir More Quotes From John Muir To the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. John Muir alaska country travel No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in a way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains as to wilderness, as that which declares that the world was 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 nature animal men Every atom in creation may be said to be acquainted with and married to every other, but with universal union there is a division sufficient in degree for the purposes of the most intense individuality. John Muir atoms degrees individuality No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. John Muir yosemite temples hands 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. John Muir measurement real soul There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords. John Muir nature flower power Every purely natural object is a conductor of divinity, and we have but to expose ourselves in a clean condition to any of these conductors, to be fed and nourished by them. Only in this way can we procure our daily spirit bread. John Muir divinity bread way One can make a day of any size John Muir seize-the-day brightness size The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual. John Muir environment spiritual civilization It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest. John Muir earthquakes people interesting 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 may littles wind In this silent, serene wilderness the weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace. John Muir gains perfect heart 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. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks — the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc. — Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world. John Muir cheer nature beauty 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 gratitude blessed life No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. John Muir glaciers wilderness perfect Society doesn't need that everybody is behaving in the full normal way... like people in a Buddhist monastery... But eccentricity may also connect with the irrational. John Muir buddhist people needs 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 storm lessons may The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong. John Muir environmental fighting tree Living artificially in towns, we are sickly, and never come to know ourselves. John Muir towns knows To lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends. ... You cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain, sky, and mountains ray beauty which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming at a camp-fire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature. John Muir spiritual sky doors
