The Wisdom of John MuirJohn Muir, a renowned naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, is celebrated for his profound wisdom and eloquent reflections on nature. His words have inspired generations to appreciate and protect the natural world. Here is a collection of some of his most memorable quotes, offering a glimpse into his philosophy and love for the wilderness. "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 will drop off like autumn leaves." "The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." "Civilization has not much to brag about. It drives its victims in flocks, repressing the growth of individuality." "I might have become a millionaire, but I chose to become a tramp!" "After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal." "Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home." "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." "It's always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls." "But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks." "I have 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." "It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter." "Both ocean and sky are already about as rosy as possible—the one with stars, the other with dulse, and foam, and wild light." "It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple woods in autumn, when the sun gold is richest." "The sun shines not on us but in us." "The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong." "I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out I found, was really going in." "Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt." "The mountains are calling and I must go." "Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." "Most people are on the world, not in it—having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate." "The world, we are told, was made especially for man—a presumption not supported by all the facts." "There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself." "Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way." "Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean." "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Excerpt 1: From The Mountains of California (1894)(Describing the grandeur of Yosemite Valley) *"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow mountaineers. Even the rocks seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. No wonder when we consider that we all have the same Father and Mother, and are all subject to the same law of love. A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself. So we will say our prayers here and sleep with our Mother Earth, and the God of the mountains will never fail us."* Excerpt 2: From My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)(Reflecting on a summer spent in the Sierra Nevada while working as a shepherd) *"The Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the range of light, the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen. Climbing higher, we enter the thin azure where only the fiercest sunbeams penetrate. The mighty rock-waves are roughened with innumerable peaks and spires, radiating, throbbing with life and light like the upraised hands of a congregation in silent worship. Every crystal, every flower, a window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the Creator. I have seen thousands of glaciers and a multitude of forms of ice, but none more glorious than those of these noble mountains, shining with the light of the most holy dawns. I should like to stay here all winter; but though loth to go, I shall wander back again to this vast, serene, and Godful wilderness, sure that I shall find my own heart again within its sacred solitude."*
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Last updated: January 16, 2025