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

The sun shines not on us, but in us.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

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.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.

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

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

The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is recognized. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places...

When we try to pick out any­thing by itself, we find it hitched to every­thing else in the Uni­verse.

Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.

Doubly happy, however, is the man whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below

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

Nothing truly wild is unclean.

Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. … Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity,...

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.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

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

The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.

Going to the woods is going home.

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

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

John Muir, Earth — planet, Universe[Muir’s home address, as inscribed on the inside front cover of his first field journal]

Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.

Most people are on the world, not in it — have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them — undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

To some, beauty seems but an accident of creation: to Muir it was the very smile of God.

If for a moment you are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from...

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

Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.

One may as well dam for water tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

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.

The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it … So...

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares...

Brought into right relationships with the wilderness, man would see that his appropriation of Earth’s resourcesbeyond his personal needs would only bring imbalance and begat ultimate loss and poverty by all.

There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity

Keep close to Nature’s heart…and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

Trees 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!

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

Certainly this Joaquin Canyon is the most remarkable in many ways of all I have entered.

Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save...

Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life...

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

Tug on anything at all and you’ll find it connected to everything else in the universe.

Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed...

There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties

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