John Muir Quotes - Page 4

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

I never saw a discontented tree.

The world, we are told, was made especially for man - a presumption not supported by all the facts... Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.

As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail. Like a generous host, she offers her brimming cups in endless variety, served in a grand hall, the sky its ceiling, the mountains its walls, decorated with glorious paintings and enlivened with bands of music ever playing.

There are no accidents in Nature.

I am well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the mountains.

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.

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.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.

No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them.

Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite.

See how God writes history. No technical knowledge is required; only a calm day and a calm mind.

Tug on anything in nature and you will find it connected to everything else.

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.

The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted.

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

No words will ever describe the exquisite beauty and charm of this mountain park – Nature’s landscape garden at once tenderly beautiful and sublime. No wonder it draws nature-lovers from all over the world.

The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men.

I always befriended animals and have said many a good word for them. Even to the least-loved mosquitoes I gave many a meal, and told them to go in peace.

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.