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Although I Was Four Years At The University [of Wisconsin], I Did Not Take The Regular Course Of Studies, But Instead Picked Out What I Thought Would Be Most Useful To Me, Particularly Chemistry, Which Opened A New World, Mathematics And Physics, A Little Greek And Latin, Botany And And Geology. I Was Far From Satisfied With What I Had Learned, And Should Have Stayed Longer.

-John Muir

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Although I Was Four

John Muir

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Although I Was Four Years At The University [of Wisconsin], I Did Not Take The Regular Course Of Studies, But Instead Picked Out What I Thought Would Be Most Useful To Me, Particularly Chemistry, Which Opened A New World, Mathematics And Physics, A Little Greek And Latin, Botany And And Geology. I Was Far From Satisfied With What I Had Learned, And Should Have Stayed Longer.

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Man And Other Civilized Animals Are The Only Creatures That Ever Become Dirty.

The Battle For Conservation Will Go On Endlessly. It Is Part Of The Universal Battle Between Right And Wrong.

Better To Toil Blindly, Beating Every Stone In Turn For Grains Of Gold, Whether They Contain Any Or Not, Than Lie Down In Apathetic Decay.

Hidden In The Glorious Wildness Like Unmined Gold.

In The Eternal Youth Of Nature, You May Renew Your Own.

It Is A Vast Wilderness Of Rocks In A Sea Of Light, Colored And Glowing Like Oak And Maple In Autumn, When The Sun Gold Is Richest

I Am Hopelessly And Forever A Mountaineer.

One Is Constantly Reminded Of The Infinite Lavishness And Fertility Of Nature-inexhaustible Abundance Amid What Seems Enormous Waste. And Yet When We Look Into Any Of Her Operations That Lie Within Reach Of Our Minds, We Learn That No Particle Of Her Material Is Wasted Or Worn Out. It Is Eternally Flowing From Use To Use, Beauty To Yet Higher Beauty; And We Soon Cease To Lament Waste And Death, And Rather Rejoice And Exult In The Imperishable, Unspendable Wealth Of The Universe.

Most People Are On The World, Not In It-- Having No Conscious Sympathy Or Relationship To Anything About Them-- Undiffused Seporate, And Rigidly Alone Like Marbles Of Polished Stone, Touching But Seporate.

When We Try To Pick Out Anything By Itself, We Find It Hitched To Everything Else In The Universe.

This Grand Show Is Eternal. It Is Always Sunrise Somewhere; The Dew Is Never Dried All At Once; A Shower Is Forever Falling; Vapor Is Ever Rising. Eternal Sunrise, Eternal Dawn And Gloaming, On Sea And Continents And Islands, Each In Its Turn, As The Round Earth Rolls.

In Every Walk With Nature One Receives Far More Than He Seeks.

No Synonym For God Is So Perfect As Beauty. Whether As Seen Carving The Lines Of The Mountains With Glaciers, Or Gathering Matter Into Stars, Or Planning The Movements Of Water, Or Gardening - Still All Is Beauty!

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

A Little Pure Wildness Is The One Great Present Want, Both Of Men And Sheep.

In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

I Wandered Away On A Glorious Botanical And Geological Excursion, Which Has Lasted Nearly Fifty Years And Is Not Yet Completed, Always Happy And Free, Poor And Rich, Without Thought Of A Diploma Or Of Making A Name, Urged On And On Through Endless, Inspiring Godful Beauty.

Man Is Always And Everywhere A Blight On The Landscape.

Most People Who Travel Look Only At What They Are Directed To Look At. Great Is The Power Of The Guidebook Maker, However Ignorant.

The Body Seems To Feel Beauty When Exposed To It As It Feels The Campfire Or Sunshine, Entering Not By The Eyes Alone, But Equally Through All One's Flesh Like Radiant Heat, Making A Passionate Ecstatic Pleasure Glow Not Explainable.

Only Spread A Fern-frond Over A Man's Head And Worldly Cares Are Cast Out, And Freedom And Beauty And Peace Come In.

Beside The Grand History Of The Glaciers And Their Own, The Mountain Streams Sing The History Of Every Avalanche Or Earthquake And Of Snow, All Easily Recognized By The Human Ear, And Every Word Evoked By The Falling Leaf And Drinking Deer, Beside A Thousand Other Facts So Small And Spoken By The Stream In So Low A Voice The Human Ear Cannot Hear Them.

The Clearest Way Into The Universe Is Through A Forest Wilderness.

A Lifetime Is So Little A Time That We Die Before We Get Ready To Live. I Should Like To Study At A College, But Then I Have To Say To Myself: "you Will Die Before You Can Do Anything Else".

One Can Make A Day Of Any Size

I Know That Our Bodies Were Made To Thrive Only In Pure Air, And The Scenes In Which Pure Air Is Found.

As Long As I Live, I'll Hear Waterfalls And Birds And Winds Sing.

Surely All God's People, However Serious Or Savage, Great Or Small, Like To Play.

Eternal Sunrise, Eternal Sunset, Eternal Dawn And Gloaming, On Seas And Continents And Islands, Each In Its Turn, As The Round Earth Rolls.

In This Silent, Serene Wilderness The Weary Can Gain A Heart-bath In Perfect Peace.

It May Not Be Easy, Life Isn't Easy, But Dreams Keep You Alive.

Every Good Thing Great And Small Needs Defense

You Know That I Have Not Lagged Behind In The Work Of Exploring Our Grand Wilderness, And In Calling Everybody To Come And Enjoy The Thousand Blessings They Have To Offer.

Wherever We Go In The Mountains, We Find More Than We Seek.

The Battle We Have Fought, And Are Still Fighting, For The Forests Is A Part Of The Eternal Conflict Between Right And Wrong.

...every Sight And Sound Inspiring, Leading One Far Out Of Himself, Yet Feeding And Building Up His Individuality.

There Are No Accidents In Nature. Every Motion Of The Constantly Shifting Bodies In The World Is Timed To The Occasion For Some Definite, Fore-ordered End. The Flowers Blossom In Obedience To The Same Law That Marks The Course Of Constellations, And The Song Of A Bird Is The Echo Of A Universal Symphony. Nature Is One, And To Me The Greatest Delight Of Observation And Study Is To Discover New Unities In This All-embracing And Eternal Harmony.

God Never Made An Ugly Landscape. All That Sun Shines On Is Beautiful, So Long As It Is Wild.

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

Our Lives Are Rounded With A Sleep.

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest.

As Age Comes On, One Source Of Enjoyment After Another Is Closed, But Nature's Sources Never Fail. Like A Generous Host, She Offers Her Brimming Cups In Endless Variety, Served In A Grand Hall, The Sky Its Ceiling, The Mountains Its Walls, Decorated With Glorious Paintings And Enlivened With Bands Of Music Ever Playing.

It Is Always Interesting To See People In Dead Earnest, From Whatever Cause, And Earthquakes Make Everybody Earnest.

How Narrow We Selfish Conceited Creatures Are In Our Sympathies! How Blind To The Rights Of All The Rest Of Creation!

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.

Yet How Hard Most People Work For Mere Dust And Ashes And Care, Taking No Thought Of Growing In Knowledge And Grace, Never Having Time To Get In Sight Of Their Own Ignorance.

Bears Are Made Of The Same Dust As We, And They Breathe The Same Winds And Drink Of The Same Waters. A Bear's Days Are Warmed By The Same Sun, His Dwellings Are Overdomed By The Same Blue Sky, And His Life Turns And Ebbs With Heart Pulsing Like Ours. He Was Poured From The Same First Fountain. And Whether He At Last Goes To Our Stingy Heaven Or Not, He Has Terrestrial Immortality. His Life, Not Long, Not Short, Knows No Beginning , No Ending. To Him Life Unstinted, Unplanned, Is Above The Accidents Of Time, And His Years, Markless And Boundless, Equal Eternity.

Going To The Woods Is Going Home, For I Suppose We Came From The Woods Originally.

Another Glorious Day, The Air As Delicious To The Lungs As Nectar To The Tongue.

Wilderness Is A Necessity ... They Will See What I Meant In Time. There Must Be Places For Human Beings To Satisfy Their Souls. Food And Drink Is Not All. There Is The Spiritual. In Some It Is Only A Germ, Of Course, But The Germ Will Grow.

Men Use Care In Purchasing A Horse, And Are Neglectful In Choosing Friends.

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.

I Was A Few Miles South Of Louisville When I Planned My Journey. I Spread Out My Map Under A Tree And Made Up My Mind To Go Through Kentucky, Tennessee, And Georgia To Florida, Thence To Cuba, Thence To Some Part Of South America; But It Will Be Only A Hasty Walk. I Am Thankful, However, For So Much.

All The World Was Before Me And Every Day Was A Holiday, So It Did Not Seem Important To Which One Of The World's Wildernesses I First Should Wander.

The Gross Heathenism Of Civilization Has Generally Destroyed Nature, And Poetry, And All That Is Spiritual.

The Finest Of The Glacier Meadow Gardens Lie ...imbedded In The Upper Pine Forests Like Lakes Of Light.

Indians Walk Softly And Hurt The Landscape Hardly More Than The Birds And Squirrels, And Their Brush And Bark Huts Last Hardly Longer Than Those Of Wood Rats, While Their More Enduring Monuments, Excepting Those Wrought On The Forests By The Fires They Made To Improve Their Hunting Grounds, Vanish In A Few Centuries.

Bread Without Butter Or Coffee Without Milk Is An Awful Calamity, As If Everything Before Being Put In Our Mouth Must First Be Held Under A Cow.

Climb The Mountains And Get Their Good Tidings. Nature's Peace Will Flow Into You As Sunshine Flows Into Trees.

No Synonym For God Is So Perfect As Beauty.

The Wrongs Done To Trees, Wrongs Of Every Sort, Are Done In The Darkness Of Ignorance And Unbelief, For When The Light Comes, The Heart Of The People Is Always Right.

The Most Distinctive, And Perhaps The Most Impressive, Characteristic Of American Scenery Is Its Wilderness.

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Few Places In This World Are More Dangerous Than Home. Fear Not, Therefore, To Try The Mountain Passes. They Will Kill Care, Save You From Deadly Apathy, Set You Free, And Call Forth Every Faculty Into Vigorous, Enthusiastic Action.

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 Great Wilds Of Our Country, Once Held To Be Boundless And Inexhaustible, Are Being Rapidly Invaded And Overrun In Every Direction, And Everything Destructible In Them Is Being Destroyed. How Far Destruction May Go It Is Not Easy To Guess. Every Landscape, Low And High, Seems Doomed To Be Trampled And Harried. Even The Sky Is Not Safe From Scath-blurred And Blackened Whole Summers Together With The Smoke Of Fires That Devour The Woods.

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 Star, And They Will Learn That Death Is Stingless Indeed, And As Beautiful As Life.

Living Artificially In Towns, We Are Sickly, And Never Come To Know Ourselves.

No Sierra Landscape That I Have Seen Holds Anything Truly Dead Or Dull, Or Any Trace Of What In Manufactories Is Called Rubbish Or Waste; Everything Is Perfectly Clean And Pure And Full Of Divine Lessons.

Wilderness Is Not Only A Haven For Native Plants And Animals But It Is Also A Refuge From Society. Its A Place To Go To Hear The Wind And Little Else, See The Stars And The Galaxies, Smell The Pine Trees, Feel The Cold Water, Touch The Sky And The Ground At The Same Time, Listen To Coyotes, Eat The Fresh Snow, Walk Across The Desert Sands, And Realize Why Its Good To Go Outside Of The City And The Suburbs. Fortunately, There Is Wilderness Just Outside The Limits Of The Cities And The Suburbs In Most Of The United States, Especially In The West.

Wander A Whole Summer If You Can. Thousands Of God's Blessings Will Search You And Soak You As If You Were A Sponge, And The Big Days Will Go By Uncounted. If You Are Business-tangled And So Burdened By Duty That Only Weeks Can Be Got Out Of The Heavy Laden Year, Give A Month At Least. The Time Will Not Be Taken From The Sum Of Life. Instead Of Shortening, It Will Indefinitely Lengthen It And Make You Truly Immortal.

I...am Always Glad To Touch The Living Rock Again And Dip My Hand In The High Mountain Air.

How Lavish Is Nature Building, Pulling Down, Creating, Destroying, Chasing Every Material Particle From Form To Form, Ever Changing, Ever Beautiful.

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. No Amount Of Word-making Will Ever Make A Single Soul To Know These Mountains. As Well Seek To Warm The Naked And Frostbitten By Lectures On Caloric And Pictures Of Flame. One Day's Exposure To Mountains Is Better Than Cartloads Of Books.

I Was Awakened By A Tremendous Earthquake, And Though I Hadn Ever Before Enjoyed A Storm Of This Sort, The Strange Thrilling Motion Could Not Be Mistaken, And I Ran Out Of My Cabin, Both Glad And Frightened, Shouting, "a Noble Earthquake! A Noble Earthquake" Feeling Sure I Was Going To Learn Something.

I Wonder If Leaves Feel Lonely When They See Their Neighbors Falling?

Walk Away Quietly In Any Direction And Taste The Freedom Of The Mountaineer.

What A Psalm The Storm Was Singing, And How Fresh The Smell Of The Washed Earth And Leaves, And How Sweet The Still Small Voices Of The Storm!

John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.

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 Time Or Make Haste Than Do The Trees And Stars. This Is True Freedom, A Good Practical Sort Of Immortality.

The Mountains Are Fountains Of Men As Well As Of Rivers, Of Glaciers, Of Fertile Soil. The Great Poets, Philosophers, Prophets, Able Men Whose Thoughts And Deeds Have Moved The World, Have Come Down From The Mountains - Mountain Dwellers Who Have Grown Strong There With The Forest Trees In Nature's Workshops.

So Extraordinary Is Nature With Her Choicest Treasures, Spending Plant Beauty As She Spends Sunshine, Pouring It Forth Into Land And Sea, Garden And Desert. And So The Beauty Of Lilies Falls On Angels And Men, Bears And Squirrels, Wolves And Sheep, Birds And Bees.

I Am Very Blessed. The Valley Is Full Of People, But They Do Not Annoy Me. I Revolve In Pathless Places And In Higher Rocks Than The World And His Ribbony Wife Can Reach.

Doubly Happy, However, Is The Man To Whom Lofty Mountain Tops Are Within Reach.

All Wilderness Seems To Be Full Of Tricks And Plans To Drive And Draw Us Up Into God's Light.

Listen To Them! How Wholly Infused With God Is This One Big Word Of Love That We Call The World!

All The Wild World Is Beautiful, And It Matters But Little Where We Go, To Highlands Or Lowlands, Woods Or Plains, On The Sea Or Land Or Down Among The Crystals Of Waves Or High In A Balloon In The Sky; Through All The Climates, Hot Or Cold, Storms And Calms, Everywhere And Always We Are In God's Eternal Beauty And Love. So Universally True Is This, The Spot Where We Chance To Be Always Seems The Best.

One Day's Exposure To Mountains Is Better Than Cartloads Of Books. See How Willingly Nature Poses Herself Upon Photographers' Plates. No Earthly Chemicals Are So Sensitive As Those Of The Human Soul.

See How God Writes History. No Technical Knowledge Is Required; Only A Calm Day And A Calm Mind.

Technical Knowledge

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.

I Should Study Nature's Laws In All Their Crossings And Unions; I Should Follow Magnetic Streams To Their Source And Follow The Shores Of Our Magnetic Oceans. I Should Go Among The Rays Of The Aurora, And Follow Them To Their Beginnings, And Study Their Dealings And Communications With Other Powers And Expressions Of Matter.

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.

When A Man Plants A Tree, He Plants Himself.

Although I Was Four Years At The University [of Wisconsin], I Did Not Take The Regular Course Of Studies, But Instead Picked Out What I Thought Would Be Most Useful To Me, Particularly Chemistry, Which Opened A New World, Mathematics And Physics, A Little Greek And Latin, Botany And And Geology. I Was Far From Satisfied With What I Had Learned, And Should Have Stayed Longer.

I’d Rather Be In The Mountains Thinking Of God, Than In Church Thinking About The Mountains.

...full Of God's Thoughts, A Place Of Peace And Safety Amid The Most Exalted Grandeur And Enthusiastic Action, A New Song, A Place Of Beginnings Abounding In First Lessons Of Life, Mountain Building, Eternal, Invincible, Unbreakable Order; With Sermons In Stone, Storms, Trees, Flowers, And Animals Brimful With Humanity.

Wander Here A Whole Summer, If You Can ... Thousands Of Wild Blessings Will Search You And Soak You As If You Were A Sponge, And The Big Days Will Go By Uncounted

At The Touch Of This Divine Light, The Mountains Seemed To Kindle To A Rapt, Religious Consciousness, And Stood Hushed Like Devout Worshippers Waiting To Be Blessed.

Tug On Anything In Nature And You Will Find It Connected To Everything Else.

I Am Learning To Live Close To The Lives Of My Friends Without Ever Seeing Them. No Miles Of Any Measurement Can Separate Your Soul From Mine.

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.

Word Lessons, In Particular The Wouldst Couldst Shouldst Have Loved Kind, Were Kept Up, With Much Warlike Thrashing, Until I Had Committed The Whole Of French, Latin, And English Grammars To Memory.

English Grammar

Divine Love Is The Sublime Boss Of The Universe.

The Radiance In Some Places Is So Great As To Be Fairly Dazzling... Every Crystal, Every Flower A Window Opening Into Heaven, A Mirror Reflecting The Creator.

I've Had A Great Time In South America And South Africa. Indeed It Now Seems That On This Pair Of Wild Hot Continents I've Enjoyed The Most Fruitful Year Of My Life.

Nature Had Gathered Her Choicest Treasures , To Draw Her Lovers Into Close And Confiding Communion With Her

In Every Country The Mountains Are Fountains, Not Only Of Rivers But Of Men. Therefore We All Are Born Mountaineers, The Offspring Of Rock And Sunshine.

The Tide Of Visitors Will Float Slowly About The Bottom Of The Valley As Harmless Scum Collecting In Hotel And Saloon Eddies, Leaving The Rocks And Falls Eloquent As Ever.

Wherever A Scotsman Goes, Here Goes Burns. His Grand Whole, Catholic Soul Squares With The Good Of All; Therefore We Find Him In Everything, Everywhere.

Few Are Altogether Deaf To The Preaching Of Pine Trees. Their Sermons On The Mountains Go To Our Hearts . . .

Many Of Nature's Finest Lessons Are To Be Found In Her Storms, And If Careful To Keep In Right Relations With Them, We May Go Safely Abroad With Them, Rejoicing In The Grandeur And Beauty Of Their Works And Ways.

Heaven Knows That John The Baptist Was Not More Eager To Get All His Fellow Sinners Into The Jordan Than I To Baptize All Of Mine In The Beauty Of God's Mountains.

Oh, These Vast, Calm, Measureless Mountain Days, Inciting At Once To Work And Rest!

Mountain Ranges

The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite.

Handle A Book As A Bee Does A Flower, Extract Its Sweetness But Do Not Damage It.

The World, We Are Told, Was Made Especially For Man - A Presumption Not Supported By All The Facts... Why Should Man Value Himself As More Than A Small Part Of The One Great Unit Of Creation?

I Have Precious Little Sympathy For The Selfish Propriety Of Civilized Man, And If Aware Of Races Should Occur Between The Wild Beasts And Lord Man, I Would Be Tempted To Sympathise With The Bears.

Surely All God's People, However Serious Or 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.

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.

…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.

One Should Go To The Woods For Safety, If For Nothing Else.

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.

Society Speaks And All Men Listen, Mountains Speak And Wise Men Listen

These Beautiful Days ... Do Not Exist As Mere Pictures - Maps Hung Upon The Walls Of Memory To Brighten At Times When Touched By Association Or Will ... They Saturate Themselves Into Every Part Of The Body And Live Always.

Imagination Is Usually Regarded As A Synonym For The Unreal. Yet Is True Imagination Healthful And Real, No More Likely To Mislead Than The Coarse Senses. Indeed, The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite.

Tell Me What You Will Of The Benefactions Of City Civilization, Of The Sweet Security Of Streets-all As Part Of The Natural Upgrowth Of Man Towards The High Destiny We Hear So Much Of. I Know That Our Bodies Were Made To Thrive Only In Pure Air, And The Scenes In Which Pure Air Is Found. If The Death Exhalations That Brood The Broad Towns In Which We So Fondly Compact Ourselves Were Made Visible, We Should Flee As From A Plague. All Are More Or Less Sick; There Is Not A Perfectly Sane Man In San Francisco.

Who Reports The Works And Ways Of The Clouds, Those Wondrous Creations Coming Into Being Every Day Like Freshly Upheaved Mountains?

In Drying Plants, Botanists Often Dry Themselves. Dry Words And Dry Facts Will Not Fire Hearts.

I Have Seen Oaks Of Many Species In Many Kinds Of Exposure And Soil, But Those Of Kentucky Excel In Grandeur All I Had Ever Before Beheld. They Are Broad And Dense And Bright Green. In The Leafy Bowers And Caves Of Their Long Branches Dwell Magnificent Avenues Of Shade, And Every Tree Seems To Be Blessed With A Double Portion Of Strong Exulting Life.

The Power Of Imagination Is Infinite.

Power Of Imagination

In Nothing Does Man, With His Grand Notions Of Heaven And Charity, Show Forth His Innate, Low-bred, Wild Animalism More Clearly Than In His Treatment Of His Brother Beasts. From The Shepherd With His Lambs To The Red-handed Hunter, It Is The Same; No Recognition Of Rights - Only Murder In One Form Or Another.

It Is A Fine Thing To See People In Hot Earnest About Anything.

...therefore All Childish Fear Must Be Put Away.

If I Should Be Fated To Walk No More With Nature, Be Compelled To Leave All I Most Devoutly Love In The Wilderness, Return To Civilization And Be Twisted Into The Characterless Cable Of Society, Then These Sweet, Free, Cumberless Rovings Will Be As Chinks And Slits On Life's Horizon, Through Which I May Obtain Glimpses Of The Treasures That Lie In God's Wilds Beyond My Reach.

Nothing Can Be Done Well At A Speed Of Forty Miles A Day. The Multitude Of Mixed, Novel Impressions Rapidly Piled On One Another Make Only A Dreamy, Bewildering, Swirling Blur, Most Of Which Is Unrememberable.

I Never Saw A Discontented Tree.

Spring Work Is Going On With Joyful Enthusiasm.

Most People Are On The World, Not In It.

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.

Oh, These Vast, Calm, Measureless Mountain Days, Inciting At Once To Work And Rest! Days In Whose Light Everything Seems Equally Divine, Opening A Thousand Windows To Show Us God. Nevermore, However Weary, Should One Faint By The Way Who Gains The Blessings Of One Mountain Day; Whatever His Fate, Long Life, Short Life, Stormy Or Calm, He Is Rich Forever.

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

What Wonders Lie In Every Mountain Day!

Any Glimpse Into The Life Of An Animal Quickens Our Own And Makes It So Much The Larger And Better In Every Way.

We All Flow From One Fountain- Soul. All Are Expressions Of One Love. God Does Not Appear, And Flow Out, Only From Narrow Chinks And Round Bored Wells Here And There In Favored Races And Places, But He Flows In Grand Undivided Currents, Shoreless And Boundless Over Creeds And Forms And All Kinds Of Civilizations And Peoples And Beasts, Saturating All And Fountainizing All.

No Right Way Is Easy In This Rough World. We Must Risk Our Lives To Save Them.

Who Wouldn't Be A Mountaineer! Up Here All The World's Prizes Seem Nothing

The Moon Is Looking Down Into The Canyon, And How Marvelously The Great Rocks Kindle To Her Light! Every Dome, And Brow, And Swelling Boss Touched By Her White Rays, Glows As If Lighted With Snow.

Any Fool Can Destroy Trees. They Cannot Run Away; And If They Could, They Would Still Be Destroyed-chased And Hunted Down As Long As Fun Or A Dollar Could Be Got Of Their Bark Hides.

The Forests Of America, However Slighted By Man, Must Have Been A Great Delight To God; For They Were The Best He Ever Planted.

God Has Cared For These Trees, Saved Them From Drought, Disease, Avalanches, And A Thousand Tempests And Floods. But He Cannot Save Them From Fools.

These Temple Destroyers, Devotees Of Ravaging Commercialism, Seem To Have A Perfect Contempt For Nature, And, Instead Of Lifting Their Eyes To The God Of The Mountains, Lift Them To The Almighty Dollar.

None Of Nature's Landscapes Are Ugly So Long As They Are Wild.

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.

To The Sane And Free It Will Hardly Seem Necessary To Cross The Continent In Search Of Wild Beauty, However Easy The Way, For They Find It In Abundance Wherever They Chance To Be.

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.

No Temple Made With Hands Can Compare With Yosemite. Every Rock In Its Walls Seems To Glow With Life...awful In Stern, Immovable Majesty, How Softly These Rocks Are Adorned, And How Fine And Reassuring The Company They Keep: Their Feet Among Beautiful Groves And Meadows, Their Brows In The Sky, A Thousand Flowers Leaning Confidingly Against Their Feet, Bathed In Floods Of Water, Floods Of Light.

The Big Tree Is Nature's Forest Masterpiece, And So Far As I Know, The Greatest Of Living Things.

How Many Hearts With Warm, Red Blood In Them Are Beating Under Cover Of The Woods, And How Many Teeth And Eyes Are Shining? A Multitude Of Animal People, Intimately Related To Us, But Of Whose Lives We Know Almost Nothing, Are As Busy About Their Own Affairs As We Are About Ours.

To Sit In Solitude, To Think In Solitude With Only The Music Of The Stream And The Cedar To Break The Flow Of Silence, There Lies The Value Of Wilderness.

We All Flow From One Fountain- Soul. All Are Expressions Of One Love.

The Grand Show Is Eternal It Is Always Sunrise Somewhere

What Is Worthwhile In Life? I Think It Is Worth Living And Dreaming. If You Don't You May Be Dead Anyhow - Inside.

By Forces Seemingly Antagonistic And Destructive Nature Accomplishes Her Beneficent Designs - Now A Flood Of Fire, Now A Flood Of Ice, Now A Flood Of Water; And Again In The Fullness Of Time An Outburst Of Organic Life.

One Can Make A Day Of Any Size And Regulate The Rising And Setting Of His Own Sun And The Brightness Of Its Shining.

Everybody Needs Beauty As Well As Bread, Places To Play In And Pray In, Where Nature May Heal And Give Strength To Body And Soul.

Galen Clark Was The Best Mountaineer I Ever Met, And One Of The Kindest And Most Amiable Of All My Mountain Friends.

Some People Miss Flesh As A Drunkard Misses His Dram.

Books Are But Stepping Stones To Show You Where Other Minds Have Been.

Going Into The Woods, Is Going Home

Fresh Beauty Opens One's Eyes Wherever It Is Really Seen, But The Very Abundance And Completeness Of The Common Beauty That Besets Our Steps Prevents Its Being Absorbed And Appreciated. It Is A Good Thing, Therefore, To Make Short Excursions Now And Then To The Bottom Of The Sea Among Dulse And Coral, Or Up Among The Clouds On Mountain-tops, Or In Balloons, Or Even To Creep Like Worms Into Dark Holes And Caverns Underground, Not Only To Learn Something Of What Is Going On In Those Out-of-the-way Places, But To See Better What The Sun Sees On Our Return To Common Every-day Beauty.

Uncle Sam Is Not Often Called A Fool In Business Matters, Yet He Has Sold Millions Of Acres Of Timber Land At Two Dollars And A Half An Acre On Which A Single Tree Was Worth More Than A Hundred Dollars. But This Priceless Land Has Been Patented, And Nothing Can Be Done Now About The Crazy Bargain.... A Bad, Black Business From Beginning To End.

Wilderness Is A Necessity... There Must Be Places For Human Beings To Satisfy Their Souls.

I Always Enjoyed The Hearty Society Of A Snowstorm.

Wildness Was Ever Sounding In Our Ears, And Nature Saw To It That Besides School Lessons Some Of Her Own Lessons Should Be Learned, Perhaps With A View To The Time When We Should Be Called To Wander In Wildness To Our Heart’s Content.

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 With Everything In Place

Who Publishes The Sheet-music Of The Winds Or The Music Of Water Written In River-lines?

Happy Will Be The Men Who, Having The Power And The Love And The Benevolent Forecast To [create A Park], Will Do It. They Will Not Be Forgotten. The Trees And Their Lovers Will Sing Their Praises, And Generations Yet Unborn Will Rise Up And Call Them Blessed.

When We Try To Pick Out Anything By Itself We Find It Hitched To Everything Else In The Universe ... The Whole Wilderness Is Unity And Interrelation, Is Alive And Familiar, Full Of Humanity. The Very Stones Seem Talkative, Sympathetic, Brotherly.

Strange The Faithless Fuss Made About Taking A Walk In The Safest And Pleasantest Of All Places, A Wilderness.

Going To The Mountains Is Going Home.

Nature In Her Green, Tranquil Woods Heals And Soothes All Afflictions.

I Never Have Held Death In Contempt, Though In The Course Of My Explorations I Have Oftentimes Felt That To Meet One's Fate On A Noble Mountain, Or In The Heart Of A Glacier, Would Be Blessed As Compared With Death From Disease, Or From Some Shabby Lowland Accident. But The Best Death, Quick And Crystal-pure, Set So Glaringly Open Before Us, Is Hard Enough To Face, Even Though We Feel Gratefully Sure That We Have Already Had Happiness Enough For A Dozen Lives.

Perhaps The Profession Of Doing Good May Be Full, But Every Body Should Be Kind At Least To Himself. Take A Course Of Good Water And Air, And In The Eternal Youth Of Nature You May Renew Your Own. Go Quietly, Alone; No Harm Will Befall You. Some Have Strange, Morbid Fears As Soon As They Find Themselves With Nature, Even In The Kindest And Wildest Of Her Solitudes, Like Very Sick Children Afraid Of Their Mother-as If God Were Dead And The Devil Were King.

To Myself, Mountains Are The Beginning And The End Of All Natural Scenery; In Them, And In The Forms Of Inferior Landscape That Lead To Them, My Affections Are Wholly Bound Up.

Never While Anything Is Left Of Me Shall This... Camp Be Forgotten. It Has Fairly Grown Into Me, Not Merely As Memory Pictures, But As Part And Parcel Of Mind And Body Alike.

I Ran Home In The Moonlight With Firm Strides; For The Sun-love Made Me Strong.

None May Wholly Escape The Good Of Nature, However Imperfectly Exposed To Her Blessings. The Minister Will Not Preach A Perfectly Flat And Sedimentary Sermon After Climbing A Snowy Peak; And The Fair Play And Tremendous Impartiality Of Nature, So Tellingly Displayed, Will Surely Affect The After Pleadings Of The Lawyer. Fresh Air At Least Will Get Into Everybody, And The Cares Of Mere Business Will Be Quenched Like The Fires Of A Sinking Ship.

There Is That In The Glance Of A Flower Which May At Times Control The Greatest Of Creation's Braggart Lords.

Rivers Flow Not Past, But Through Us; Tingling, Vibrating, Exciting Every Cell And Fiber In Our Bodies, Making Them Sing And Glide.

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".

In Studying The Fate Of Our Forest King, We Have Thus Far Considered The Action Of Purely Natural Causes Only; But, Unfortunately, Man Is In The Woods, And Waste And Pure Destruction Are Making Rapid Headway. If The Importance Of The Forests Were Even Vaguely Understood, Even From An Economic Standpoint, Their Preservation Would Call Forth The Most Watchful Attention Of Government

Writing Is Like The Life Of A Glacier; One Eternal Grind.

When We Contemplate The Whole Globe As One Great Dewdrop, Striped And Dotted With Continents And Islands, Flying Through Space With Other Stars All Singing And Shining Together As One, The Whole Universe Appears As An Infinite Storm Of Beauty.

I Am Well Again, I Came To Life In The Cool Winds And Crystal Waters Of The Mountains.

Any Fool Can Destroy Trees, They Cannot Run Away.

I Might Have Become A Millionaire, But I Chose To Become A Tramp.

Keep In View The Common Good Of The People For All Time.

The United States Government Has Always Been Proud Of The Welcome It Has Extended To Good Men Of Every Nation, Seeking Freedom And Homes And Bread.

I Don't Agree With You In Saying That In All Human Minds There Is Poetry. Man As He Came From The Hand Of His Maker Was Poetic In Both Mind And Body, But The Gross Heathenism Of Civilization Has Generally Destroyed Nature, And Poetry, And All That Is Spiritual.

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!

Between Every Two Pines Is A Doorway To A New World.

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Alan K. Simpson

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