When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe ... The whole wilderness is unity and interrelation, is alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. John Muir More Quotes by John Muir More Quotes From John Muir 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 adventure inspirational travel So extraordinary 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 sunshine angel fall None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild. John Muir ugly adventure long Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts . . . John Muir mountain heart tree Going to the mountains is going home. John Muir hiking home adventure Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach. John Muir climbing hiking men 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 fighting nature tree Nothing truly wild is unclean. John Muir We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,-a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal. John Muir glasses nature science I have a low opinion of books; they are but piles of stones set up to show coming travelers where other minds have been, or at best signal smokes to call attention. No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains. As well seek to warm the naked and frostbitten by lectures on caloric and pictures of flame. One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. John Muir flames soul book I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer. John Muir forever I wonder if leaves feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling? John Muir lonely wonder fall Of all the fire mountains which like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest. John Muir mountain coast fire One can make a day of any size and regulate the rising and setting of his own sun and the brightness of its shining. John Muir garden shining life How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over. The highest peaks burned like islands in a sea of liquid shade. Then the lower peaks and spires caught the glow, and long lances of light, streaming through many a notch and pass, fell thick on the frozen meadows. John Muir pain light islands Although I was four years at the University [of Wisconsin], I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer. John Muir latin science years 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, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes. John Muir lakes rivers morning The power of imagination is infinite. John Muir power-of-imagination infinite imagination Nature as a poet, an enthusiastic workingman, becomes more and more visible the farther and higher we go; for the mountains are fountains – beginning places, however related to sources beyond mortal ken. John Muir fountain mountain poet I must return to the mountains-to Yosemite. I am told that the winter storms there will not be easily borne, but I am bewitched, enchanted, and tomorrow I must start for the great temple to listen to the winter songs and sermons preached and sung only there. John Muir storm winter song
