Background Image

...

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.

-John Muir

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Bread Without Butter Or

John Muir

...

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.

Views: 16

Topic

More From John Muir

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

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.

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.

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 Out Of Their Bark Hides, Branching Horns, Or Magnificent Bole Backbones. Few That Fell Trees Plant Them; Nor Would Planting Avail Much Towards Getting Back Anything Like The Noble Primeval Forests. During A Man's Life Only Saplings Can Be Grown, In The Place Of The Old Trees-tens Of Centuries Old-that Have Been Destroyed.

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

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.

Anyhow We Never Know Where We Must Go, Nor What Guides We Are To Get - -people,storms, Guardian Angels, Or Sheep.

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 Substance Of The Winds Is Too Thin For Human Eyes, Their Written Language Is Too Difficult For Human Minds, And Their Spoken Language Mostly Too Faint For The Ears.

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

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.

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!

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

When One Tugs At A Single Thing In Nature; He Finds It Attached To The Rest Of The World. Variant - When We Try To Pick Out Anything By Itself, We Find It Hitched To Everything Else In The Universe. Variant - Tug On Anything At All And You'll Find It Connected To Everything Else In The Universe.

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.

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. Nature As A Poet, An Enthusiastic Workingman, Becomes More And More Visible The Farther And Higher We Go.

Nature As A Poet, An Enthusiastic Workingman, Becomes More And More Visible The Farther And Higher We Go; For The Mountains Are Fountains – Beginning Places, However Related To Sources Beyond Mortal Ken.

In God's Wildness Lies The Hope Of The World-the Great Fresh Unblighted, Unredeemed Wilderness. The Galling Harness Of Civilization Drops Off, And Wounds Heal Ere We Are Aware.

Every Purely Natural Object Is A Conductor Of Divinity, And We Have But To Expose Ourselves In A Clean Condition To Any Of These Conductors, To Be Fed And Nourished By Them. Only In This Way Can We Procure Our Daily Spirit Bread.

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.

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

There Is No Estimating The Wit And Wisdom Concealed And Latent In Our Lower Fellow Mortals Until Made Manifest By Profound Experiences; For It Is Through Suffering That Dogs As Well As Saints Are Developed And Made Perfect.

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.

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.

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

We All Travel The Milky Way Together, Trees And Men.

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.

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

To The Lover Of Pure Wildness Alaska Is One Of The Most Wonderful Countries In The World.

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

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

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.

Yosemite Park Is A Place Of Rest, A Refuge From The Roar And Dust And Weary, Nervous, Wasting Work Of The Lowlands, In Which One Gains The Advantages Of Both Solitude And Society.

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

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

Characteristics

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.

There Are No Accidents In Nature.

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

When A Man Plants A Tree, He Plants Himself.

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

The Last Days Of This Glacial Winter Are Not Yet Past; We Live In 'creation's Dawn.' The Morning Stars Still Sing Together, And The World, Though Made, Is Still Being Made And Becoming More Beautiful Every Day.

When I Discovered A New Plant, I Sat Down Beside It For A Minute Or A Day, To Make Its Acquaintance And Hear What It Had To Tell... I Asked The Boulders I Met, Whence They Came And Whither They Were Going.

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.

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.

Of All The Fire Mountains Which Like Beacons, Once Blazed Along The Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier Is The Noblest.

I 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.

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.

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.

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.

We Are In The Mountains And They Are In Us, Kindling Enthusiasm, Making Every Nerve Quiver, Filling Every Pore And Cell Of Us....how Glorious A Conversion, So Complete And Wholesome It Is, Scarce Memory Enough Of Old Bondage Days Left As A Standpoint To View It From! In This Newness Of Life We Seem To Have Been So Always

I Made These Sierra Trips, Carrying Only A Sackful Of Bread With A Little Tea And Sugar, And Was Thus Independent And Free.

We All Travel The Milky Way Together, Trees And Men; But It Never Occurred To Me Until This Storm-day, While Swinging In The Wind, That Trees Are Travelers In The Ordinary Sense. They Make Many Journeys, Not Extensive Ones, It Is True; But Our Own Little Journeys, Away And Back Again, Are Only Little More Than Tree-wavings - Many Of Them Not So Much.

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.

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.

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.

Yosemite Park... None Can Escape Its Charms. Its Natural Beauty Cleans And Warms Like A Fire, And You Will Be Willing To Stay Forever In One Place Like A Tree.

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.

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

Gigantic Second And Third Growth Trees Are Found In The Redwoods, Forming Magnificent Temple-like Circles Around Charred Ruins More Than A Thousand Years Old.

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

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.

No Synonym For God Is So Perfect As Beauty.

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

Between Every Two Pine Trees There Is A Door Leading To A New Way Of Life.

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.

The World Is Big And I Want To Have A Good Look At It Before It Gets Dark.

No Temple Made With Hands Can Compare With Yosemite. Every Rock In Its Walls Seems To Glow With Life. Some Lean Back In Majestic Repose; Others, Absolutely Sheer Or Nearly So For Thousands Of Feet, Advance Beyond Their Companions In Thoughtful Attitudes, Giving Welcome To Storms And Calms Alike, Seemingly Aware, Yet Heedless, Of Everything Going On About Them.

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?

Quench Love, And What Is Left Of A Man's Life But The Folding Of A Few Jointed Bones And Square Inches Of Flesh? Who Would Call That Life?

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

Technical Knowledge

The Power Of Imagination Is Infinite.

Power Of Imagination

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

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.

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.

I Have Never Yet Happened Upon A Trace Of Evidence... To Show That Any One Animal Was Ever Made For Another As Much As It Was Made For Itself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Man, In His Books, May Be Said To Walk The Earth A Long Time After He Is Gone.

...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.

Only By Going Alone In Silence, Without Baggage, Can One Truly Get Into The Heart Of The Wilderness. All Other Travel Is Mere Dust And Hotels And Baggage And Chatter.

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.

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

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

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

I Have Enjoyed The Trees & Scenery Of Ky Exceedingly. How Shall I Ever Tell Of The Miles & Miles Of Beauty That Have Been Flowing Into Me In Such Measure?

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.

Lizards Of Every Temper, Style, And Color Dwell Here, Seemingly As Happy And Companionable As The Birds And Squirrels.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Look! Nature Is Overflowing With The Grandeur Of God!

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

God Has To Nearly Kill Us Sometimes, To Teach Us Lessons.

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest.

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains! To Behold This Alone Is Worth The Pains Of Any Excursion A Thousand Times Over. The Highest Peaks Burned Like Islands In A Sea Of Liquid Shade. Then The Lower Peaks And Spires Caught The Glow, And Long Lances Of Light, Streaming Through Many A Notch And Pass, Fell Thick On The Frozen Meadows.

John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.

If The Creator Were To Bestow A New Set Of Senses Upon Us, Or Slightly Remodel The Present Ones, Leaving All The Rest Of Nature Unchanged, We Should Never Doubt We Were In Another World, And So In Strict Reality We Should Be, Just As If All The World Besides Our Senses Were Changed.

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.

So Abundant And Novel Are The Objects Of Interest In A Pure Wilderness That Unless You Are Pursuing Special Studies It Matters Little Where You Go, Or How Often To The Same Place. Wherever You Chance To Be Always Seems At The Moment Of All Places The Best; And You Feel That There Can Be No Happiness In This World Or In Any Other For Those Who May Not Be Happy There.

Ink Cannot Tell The Glow That Lights Me At This Moment In Turning To The Mountains. I Feel Strong [enough] To Leap Yosemite Walls At A Bound.

My Meals Were Easily Made, For They Were All Alike And Simple, Only A Cupful Of Tea And Bread.

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

C. Albus...i Think The Very Loveliest Of All The Lily Family - A Spotless Soul, Plant Saint, That Every One Must Love And So Be Made Better. It Puts The Wildest Mountaineer On His Good Behavior. With This Plant The Whole World Would Seem Rich Though Non Other Existed.

Of All The Paths You Take In Life, Make Sure A Few Of Them Are Dirt.

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.

All Nature's Wildness Tells The Same Story: The Shocks And Outbursts Of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Geysers, Roaring, Thundering Waves And Floods, The Silent Uprush Of Sap In Plants, Storms Of Every Sort, Each And All, Are The Orderly, Beauty-making Love-beats Of Nature's Heart.

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

…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.

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest. There Is No Repose Like That Of The Green Deep Woods.

In The Beauty And Grandeur Of Individual Trees, And In Number And Variety Of Species, The Sierra Forests Surpass All Others

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

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.

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.

In God's Wildness Lies The Hope Of The World.

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.

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.

Not Blind Opposition To Progress,but Opposition To Blind Progress.

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

I Have Enjoyed The Trees And Scenery Of Kentucky Exceedingly. How Shall I Ever Tell Of The Miles And Miles Of Beauty That Have Been Flowing Into Me In Such Measure? These Lofty Curving Ranks Of Lobing, Swelling Hills, These Concealed Valleys Of Fathomless Verdure, And These Lordly Trees With The Nursing Sunlight Glancing In Their Leaves Upon The Outlines Of The Magnificent Masses Of Shade Embosomed Among Their Wide Branches-these Are Cut Into My Memory To Go With Me Forever.

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.

Going Into The Woods, Is Going Home

God Cannot Save Them From Fools.

Any Glimpse Into The Life Of An Animal Quickens Our Own And Makes It So Much The Larger And Better In Every Way." ... "surely A Better Time Must Be Drawing Nigh When Godlike Human Beings Will Become Truly Humane, And Learn To Put Their Animal Fellow Mortals In Their Hearts Instead Of On Their Backs Or In Their Dinners.

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

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.

It Took More Than Three Thousand Years To Make Some Of The Trees In These Western Woods ... Through All The Wonderful, Eventful Centuries Since Christ's Time-and Long Before That-god Has Cared For These Trees, Saved Them From Drought, Disease, Avalanches, And A Thousand Straining, Leveling Tempests And Floods; But He Cannot Save Them From Fools.

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

Few Are Altogether Deaf To The Preaching Of Pine Trees. Their Sermons On The Mountains Go To Our Hearts; And If People In General Could Be Got Into The Woods, Even For Once, To Hear The Trees Speak For Themselves, All Difficulties In The Way Of Forest Preservation Would Vanish.

How Infinitely Superior To Our Physical Senses Are Those Of The Mind!

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.

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

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!

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.

I Will Follow My Instincts, Be Myself For Good Or Ill, And See What Will Be The Upshot.

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.

Look Up And Down And Round About You.!

But To Gain A Perfect View, One Must Go Yet Further, Over A Curving Brow To A Slight Shelf On The Extreme Brink.

Divine Love Is The Sublime Boss Of The Universe.

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

I Have A Low Opinion Of Books: They Are Piles Of Stones Set Up To Show Coming Travelers Where Other Minds Have Been, Or At Best Signal Smokes To Call Attention.

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

Man Has Injured Every Animal He Has Touched.

No Temple Made With Hands Can Compare With Yosemite.

To Lovers Of The Wild, These Mountains Are Not A Hundred Miles Away. Their Spiritual Power And The Goodness Of The Sky Make Them Near, As A Circle Of Friends. ... You Cannot Feel Yourself Out Of Doors; Plain, Sky, And Mountains Ray Beauty Which You Feel. You Bathe In These Spirit-beams, Turning Round And Round, As If Warming At A Camp-fire. Presently You Lose Consciousness Of Your Own Separate Existence: You Blend With The Landscape, And Become Part And Parcel Of Nature.

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

Most People Are On The World, Not In It.

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

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.

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

We Are Now In The Mountains And They Are In Us, Kindling Enthusiasm, Making Every Nerve Quiver, Filling Every Pore And Cell Of Us. Our Flesh-and-bone Tabernacle Seems Transparent As Glass To The Beauty About Us, As If Truly An Inseparable Part Of It, Thrilling With The Air And Trees, Streams And Rocks, In The Waves Of The Sun,-a Part Of All Nature, Neither Old Nor Young, Sick Nor Well, But Immortal.‎

The Grand Show Is Eternal It Is Always Sunrise Somewhere

Plants, Animals, And Stars Are All Kept In Place, Bridled Along Appointed Ways, With One Another, And Through The Midst Of One Another -- Killing And Being Killed, Eating And Being Eaten, In Harmonious Proportions And Quantities.

I Must Return To The Mountains-to Yosemite. I Am Told That The Winter Storms There Will Not Be Easily Borne, But I Am Bewitched, Enchanted, And Tomorrow I Must Start For The Great Temple To Listen To The Winter Songs And Sermons Preached And Sung Only There.

Walk Away Quietly In Any Direction And Taste The Freedom Of The Mountaineer. Camp Out Among The Grasses And Gentians Of Glacial Meadows, In Craggy Garden Nooks Full Of Nature's Darlings.

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.

Society Doesn't Need That Everybody Is Behaving In The Full Normal Way... Like People In A Buddhist Monastery... But Eccentricity May Also Connect With The Irrational.

I Am Often Asked If I Am Not Lonely On My Solitary Excursions. It Seems So Self-evident That One Cannot Be Lonesome Where Everything Is Wild And Beautiful And Busy And Steeped With God That The Question Is Hard To Answer.

Every Atom In Creation May Be Said To Be Acquainted With And Married To Every Other, But With Universal Union There Is A Division Sufficient In Degree For The Purposes Of The Most Intense Individuality.

Everybody Needs Beauty As Well As Bread.

But No Temple Made With Hands Can Compare With Yosemite. Every Rock In Its Walls Seems To Glow With Life...as If Into This One Mountain Mansion Nature Had Gathered Her Choicest Treasures.

Few In These Hot, Dim, Strenuous Times Are Quite Sane Or Free; Choked With Care Like Clocks Full Of Dust, Laboriously Doing So Much Good And Making So Much Money - Or So Little, They Are No Longer Good For Themselves.

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

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.

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".

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

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.

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

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.

So Also There Are Tides And Floods In The Affairs Of Men, Which In Some Are Slight And May Be Kept Within Bounds, But In Others They Overmaster Everything.

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

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.

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

I Wish I Knew Where I Was Going. Doomed To Be Carried Of The Spirit Into The Wilderness, I Suppose. I Wish I Could Be More Moderate In My Desires, But I Cannot, And So There Is No Rest.

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.

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.

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.

We Live With Our Heels As Well As Head And Most Of Our Pleasure Comes In That Way.

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

I Like To Walk, Touch Living Mother Earth—bare Feet Best, And Thrill Every Step. Used To Envy Happy Reptiles That Had Advantage Of So Much Body In Contact With Earth, Bosom To Bosom. [we] Live With Our Heels As Well As Head And Most Of Our Pleasure Comes In That Way.

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. This Natural Beauty-hunger Is Made Manifest In The Little Window-sill Gardens Of The Poor, Though Perhaps Only A Geranium Slip In A Broken Cup, As Well As In The Carefully Tended Rose And Lily Gardens Of The Rich, The Thousands Of Spacious City Parks And Botanical Gardens, And In Our Magnificent National Parks — The Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, Etc. — Nature's Sublime Wonderlands, The Admiration And Joy Of The World.

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

Thus Godlike Sympathy Grows And Thrives And Spreads Far Beyond The Teachings Of Churches And Schools, Where Too Often The Mean, Blinding, Loveless Doctrine Is Taught That Animals Have No Rights That We Are Bound To Respect, And Were Only Made For Man, To Be Petted, Spoiled, Slaughtered Or Enslaved.

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

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

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.

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

In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

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.

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

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.

Every Hidden Cell Is Throbbing With Music And Life, Every Fiber Thrilling Like Harp Strings.

One Learns That The World, Though Made, Is Yet Being Made; That This Is Still The Morning Of Creation; That Mountains Long Conceived Are Now Being Born, Channels Traced For Coming Rivers, Basins Hollowed For Lakes.

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

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.

Government Protection Should Be Thrown Around Every Wild Grove And Forest On The Mountains, As It Is Around Every Private Orchard, And The Trees In Public Parks. To Say Nothing Of Their Value As Fountains Of Timber, They Are Worth Infinitely More Than All The Gardens And Parks Of Towns.

Trending Author

Rebecca Harding Davis

Sophie Kinsella

Christopher Fry

Category