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.
John MuirRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nature constantly transforms through creation and destruction, embodying a rhythmic cycle of beauty and change.
In this quote, John Muir emphasizes the dynamic and ever-changing essence of nature. He portrays it as a continuous process of building and tearing down, where beauty is found in the rhythm of transformation, illustrating how everything in the natural world is interconnected through this perpetual cycle of life. Nature's ability to create and destroy is an integral part of its existence, reflecting a harmonious balance that invites awe and appreciation.
Themes
NatureTransformationBeautyRhythmLife
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can inspire a speech on environmental conservation.
More from John Muir
All quotes βWhen we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
John MuirRead
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".
John MuirRead
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.
John MuirRead
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.
John MuirRead
...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.
John MuirRead
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A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
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Ralph Waldo EmersonRead