Quote collection
322 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Every atom in creation may be said to be acquainted with and married to every other, but with universal union there is a division sufficient in degree for the purposes of the most intense individuality."
"In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government"
"The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted."
"Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every-day beauty."
"John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe."
"One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature-inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe."
"Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark huts last hardly longer than those of wood rats, while their more enduring monuments, excepting those wrought on the forests by the fires they made to improve their hunting grounds, vanish in a few centuries."
"The tide of visitors will float slowly about the bottom of the valley as harmless scum collecting in hotel and saloon eddies, leaving the rocks and falls eloquent as ever."
"Listen to them! How wholly infused with God is this one big word of love that we call the world!"
"The finest of the glacier meadow gardens lie ...imbedded in the upper pine forests like lakes of light."
"It is a fine thing to see people in hot earnest about anything."
"The blessings of one mountain day, whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever."
"See how God writes history. No technical knowledge is required; only a calm day and a calm mind."
"The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men."
"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."
"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."
"Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing"
"Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?"
"I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong."
"Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends."