John Muir Quotes

291 Sourced Quotes

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

John Muir

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

John Muir

It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. 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. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

John Muir

Little, however, is to be learned in confused, hurried tourist trips, spending only a poor noisy hour in a branded grove with a guide. You should go looking and listening alone on long walks through the wild forests and groves in all the seasons of the year. In the spring the winds are balmy and sweet.... In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness.... In the autumn the sighing of the winds is softer than ever.... Winter comes suddenly, arrayed in storms.

John Muir

I'm now done with this glorious continent [South America] …. I've seen all I sought for and far, far, far more. … wandered most joyfully … through millions of acres of the ancient tree I was so anxious to find, Araucaria braziliensis. Just think of the glow of my joy in these noble aboriginal forests — the face of every tree marked with the inherited experiences of millions of years. … Crossed the Andes... Then straight to snowline and found a glorious forest of Araucaria imbricata, the strangest of the strange genus.

John Muir

I have known many dogs, and many a story I could tell of their wisdom and devotion; but to none do I owe so much as to Stickeen. At first the least promising and least known of my dog-friends, he suddenly became the best known of them all. Our storm-battle for life brought him to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.

John Muir

Their eager, childlike attention was refreshing to see as compared with the decent, deathlike apathy of weary civilized people, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and care and poor, shallow comfort.

John Muir

Every purely natural object is a conductor of divinity, and we have but to expose ourselves in a clean condition to any of these conductors, to be fed and nourished by them. Only in this way can we procure our daily spirit bread.

John Muir

That memorable day died in purple and gold, and just as the last traces of the sunset faded in the west and the star-lilies filled the sky, the full moon looked down over the rim of the valley, and the great rocks, catching the silvery glow, came forth out of the dusky shadows like very spirits.

John Muir

Small flakes or single crystals appear, glinting and swirling in zigzags and spirals; and soon the thronging feathery masses fill the sky and make darkness like night, hurrying wandering mountaineers to their winter quarters.

John Muir

The faint lisp of snowflakes as they alight is one of the smallest sounds mortal can hear.

John Muir

Surely all God's people, however serious and savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes, — all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them.

John Muir

I wonder if leaves feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling?

John Muir

Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get—people, storms, guardian angels, or sheep....

John Muir

Nature is a good mother, and sees well to the clothing of her many bairns - birds with smoothly imbricated feathers, beetles with shining jackets, and bears with shaggy furs.

John Muir

Here I could stay tethered forever with just bread and water, nor would I be lonely; loved friends and neighbors, as love for everything increased, would seem all the nearer however many the miles and mountains between us.

John Muir

I have a low opinion of books; they are but piles of stones set up to show coming travelers where other minds have been, or at best signal smokes to call attention.

John Muir

This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!

John Muir

The axe and saw are insanely busy, chips are flying thick as snowflakes, and every summer thousands of acres of priceless forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, climate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away in clouds of smoke, while, except in the national parks, not one forest guard is employed.

John Muir

Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.

John Muir