John Muir Quotes

The blessings of one mountain day, whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.

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

They tell us that plants are not like man immortal, but are perishable-soul -less. I think that is something that we know exactly nothing about.

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.

Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?

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

Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends.

I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong.

Nature has always something rare to show us... and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof.

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

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest!

...therefore all childish fear must be put away.

Ink cannot tell the glow that lights me at this moment in turning to the mountains. I feel strong [enough] to leap Yosemite walls at a bound.

What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!

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.

Our lives are rounded with a sleep.

A man, in his books, may be said to walk the earth a long time after he is gone.

Better to toil blindly, beating every stone in turn for grains of gold, whether they contain any or not, than lie down in apathetic decay.

It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest.

Living artificially in towns, we are sickly, and never come to know ourselves.

Society doesn't need that everybody is behaving in the full normal way... like people in a Buddhist monastery... But eccentricity may also connect with the irrational.

So also there are tides and floods in the affairs of men, which in some are slight and may be kept within bounds, but in others they overmaster everything.

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.

Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.

It may not be easy, life isn't easy, but dreams keep you alive.

Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.

Every good thing great and small needs defense

The most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wilderness.

In the woods is perpetual youth.

Keep in view the common good of the people for all time.

One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.

A lifetime is so little a time that we die before we get ready to live. I should like to study at a college, but then I have to say to myself: "You will die before you can do anything else".

Men use care in purchasing a horse, and are neglectful in choosing friends.

Books are but stepping stones to show you where other minds have been.

In every country the mountains are fountains, not only of rivers but of men. Therefore we all are born mountaineers, the offspring of rock and sunshine.

Strange the faithless fuss made about taking a walk in the safest and pleasantest of all places, a wilderness.

Man has injured every animal he has touched.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally.

All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander.

To the sane and free it will hardly seem necessary to cross the continent in search of wild beauty, however easy the way, for they find it in abundance wherever they chance to be.

He had gone to the higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's death]

Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant.

A little pure wildness is the one great present want, both of men and sheep.

Some people miss flesh as a drunkard misses his dram.

But to gain a perfect view, one must go yet further, over a curving brow to a slight shelf on the extreme brink.

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.

You know that I have not lagged behind in the work of exploring our grand wilderness, and in calling everybody to come and enjoy the thousand blessings they have to offer.

I have enjoyed the trees & scenery of KY exceedingly. How shall I ever tell of the miles & miles of beauty that have been flowing into me in such measure?

I always enjoyed the hearty society of a snowstorm.

I've had a great time in South America and South Africa. Indeed it now seems that on this pair of wild hot continents I've enjoyed the most fruitful year of my life.