John Muir

“Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own.”

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

“The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

“I'd rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking of the mountains.”

“One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.”

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.”

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere.”

“Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal.”

“The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.”

“There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or not, and however covered by cares and duties.”

“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.”

“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.”

“Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”

“Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.”

“There are no accidents in Nature, every motion of the constantly shifting bodies in the world is timed to the occasion for some definite, foreordered end.”

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

“The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.”