John Muir

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.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

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".

The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. The whole continent was a garden, and from the beginning, it seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

...full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity.

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

To the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.

What is worthwhile in life? I think it is worth living and dreaming. If you don't you may be dead anyhow - inside.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

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.

I will follow my instincts, be myself for good or ill, and see what will be the upshot.

Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.

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.

Never while anything is left of me shall this... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike.

Not blind opposition to progress,but opposition to blind progress.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.

I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.

Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing