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
The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes how harm to trees happens due to ignorance, and that people inherently care for nature when they are informed.
John Muir's quote highlights the detrimental impact of human actions on trees and nature, attributing this harm to a lack of awareness and belief in the importance of the environment. It suggests that once people are enlightened about the significance of trees and nature, they will naturally develop a sense of responsibility and care for the natural world, indicating that education and awareness are crucial for environmental stewardship.
Themes
TreesIgnoranceAwarenessNatureEnvironment
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during an environmental awareness seminar to emphasize the importance of education in protecting nature.
More from John Muir
All quotes →When 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
Similar quotes
This oak tree and me, we're made of the same stuff.
Carl SaganRead
If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.
Edward AbbeyRead
When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I'd caused the dragonfly to be killed.
Jane GoodallRead
Is it too late to prevent us from self-destructing? No, for we have the capacity to design our own future, to take a lesson from living things around us and bring our values and actions in line with ecological necessity. But we must first realize that ecological and social and economic issues are all deeply intertwined. There can be no solution to one without a solution to the others.
Jean-Michel CousteauRead
Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.
Aldo LeopoldRead
Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm.
Emily DickinsonRead