John Muir Quotes

Scottish-American naturalist (1838–1914)

Add quote

John Muir (21 April 1838 – 24 December 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: J. Muir

From Wikidata (CC0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions.

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! … In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make — leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents, or piled stone — we all dwell in a house of one room — the world with the firmament for its roof — and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

You'll never make up what you lost today, I've been wandering through a thousand rooms of God's crystal temple. I've been a thousand feet down in the crevasses, with matchless domes and sculpted figures and carved ice-work all about me. Solomon's marble and ivory palaces were nothing to it. Such purity, such color, such delicate beauty! I was tempted to stay there and feed my soul, and softly freeze, until I would become part of the glacier. What a great death that would be.

To dine with a glacier on a sunny day is a glorious thing and makes common feast of meat and wine ridiculous. The glacier eats hills and sunbeams.

"As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".

This is Nature's own reservation, and every lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by kindly frost it is so well defended.

Going to the woods is going home.

...And how after we grow old can we read the Bible without a little helpful science? Just think, father, you cannot read your Bible without spectacles,... And spectacles cannot be made without some knowledge of the science of optics.

[Concerning the Hemlock Spruce, now called Mountain Hemlock:] I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of this favorite spruce. … The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; bright streams from the snow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthus spreads precious carpets in its shade. But the best words only hint its charms. Come to the mountains and see.

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

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.

The deeper the solitude the less the sense of loneliness, and the nearer our friends.

...every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality.

People are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home, that wilderness is a necessity.

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.