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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.

-John Muir

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How Hard To Realize

John Muir

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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.

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One Day's Exposure To Mountains Is Better Than A Cartload Of Books.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

No Dogma Taught By The Present Civilization Seems To Form So Insuperable An Obstacle In A Way Of A Right Understanding Of The Relations Which Culture Sustains As To Wilderness, As That Which Declares That The World Was Made Especially For The Uses Of Men. Every Animal, Plant, And Crystal Controverts It In The Plainest Terms. Yet It Is Taught From Century To Century As Something Ever New And Precious, And In The Resulting Darkness The Enormous Conceit Is Allowed To Go Unchallenged.

God Cannot Save Them From Fools.

Earth Has No Sorrow That Earth Can Not Heal.

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.

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.

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.

Nature Is Always Lovely, Invincible, Glad, Whatever Is Done And Suffered By Her Creatures. All Scars She Heals, Whether In Rocks Or Water Or Sky Or Hearts.

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.

...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.

Going Into The Woods, Is Going Home

The Mountains Are Fountains Not Only Of Rivers And Fertile Soil, But Of Men.

No Synonym For God Is So Perfect As Beauty.

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 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 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.

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.

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

He Had Gone To The Higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's Death]

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Mountain Ranges

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.

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

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.

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.

The Power Of Imagination Is Infinite.

Power Of Imagination

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.

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

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

Characteristics

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When I First Caught Sight Of (mount Shasta) Over The Braided Folds Of The Sacramento Valley I Was Fifty Miles Away And Afoot, Alone And Weary. Yet All My Blood Turned To Wine, And I Have Not Been Weary Since.

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.

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

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.

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.

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".

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

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

I Am Hopelessly And Forever A Mountaineer.

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.

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 The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

Lie Down Among The Pines For A While, Then Get To Plain Pure White Love-work ... To Help Humanity And Other Mortals And The Lord.

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.

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.

Large Flocks Of Butterflies, All Kinds Of Happy Insects, Seem To Be In A Perfect Fever Of Joy And Sportive Gladness.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

…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.

The Sun Shines Not On Us But In Us.

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.

We All Flow From One Fountain.

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

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.

When A Man Plants A Tree, He Plants Himself.

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest.

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

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

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 We Must Count On Watching And Striving For These Trees, And Should Always Be Glad To Find Anything So Surely Good And Noble To Strive For.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

When You Tug At A Single Thing In The Universe, You'll Find Its Attached To Everything Else.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

What Wonders Lie In Every Mountain Day!

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest. There Is No Repose Like That Of The Green Deep Woods. Here Grow The Wallflower And The Violet. The Squirrel Will Come And Sit Upon Your Knee, The Logcock Will Wake You In The Morning. Sleep In Forgetfulness Of All Ill. Of All The Upness Accessible To Mortals, There Is No Upness Comparable To The Mountains.

Winds Are Advertisements Of All They Touch, However Much Or Little We May Be Able To Read Them; Telling Their Wanderings Even By Their Scents Alone.

The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite.

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.

Nature Has Always Something Rare To Show Us... And The Danger To Life And Limb Is Hardly Greater Than One Would Experience Crouching Deprecatingly Beneath A Roof.

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.

I Always Enjoyed The Hearty Society Of A Snowstorm.

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.

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.

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.

Hiking - I Don't Like Either The Word Or The Thing. People Ought To Saunter In The Mountains - Not Hike! Do You Know The Origin Of That Word 'saunter?' It's A Beautiful Word. Away Back In The Middle Ages People Used To Go On Pilgrimages To The Holy Land, And When People In The Villages Through Which They Passed Asked Where They Were Going, They Would Reply, "a La Sainte Terre,' 'to The Holy Land.' And So They Became Known As Sainte-terre-ers Or Saunterers. Now These Mountains Are Our Holy Land, And We Ought To Saunter Through Them Reverently, Not 'hike' Through Them."

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.

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

Some People Miss Flesh As A Drunkard Misses His Dram.

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.

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Our Lives Are Rounded With A Sleep.

Any Fool Can Destroy Trees, They Cannot Run Away.

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

Nothing Truly Wild Is Unclean.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Groves And Thickets Of Smaller Trees Are Full Of Blooming Evergreen Vines. These Vines Are Not Arranged In Separate Groups, Or In Delicate Wreaths, But In Bossy Walls And Heavy, Mound-like Heaps And Banks. Am Made To Feel That I Am Now In A Strange Land. I Know Hardly Any Of The Plants, But Few Of The Birds, And I Am Unable To See The Country For The Solemn, Dark, Mysterious Cypress Woods Which Cover Everything.

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.

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.

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

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.

One Can Make A Day Of Any Size

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

There Is Not A Fragment In All Nature, For Every Relative Fragment Of One Thing Is A Full Harmonious Unit In Itself.

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

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

Climb The Mountains And Get Their Good Tidings.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Sun Shines Not On Us But In Us. The Rivers Flow Not Past, But Through Us. Thrilling, Tingling, Vibrating Every Fiber And Cell Of The Substance Of Our Bodies, Making Them Glide And Sing. The Trees Wave And The Flowers Bloom In Our Bodies As Well As Our Souls, And Every Bird Song, Wind Song, And Tremendous Storm Song Of The Rocks In The Heart Of The Mountains Is Our Song, Our Very Own, And Sings Our Love.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.‎

...good Luck And Good Work For The Happy Mountain Raindrops, Each One Of Them A High Waterfall In Itself, Descending From The Cliffs And Hollows Of The Clouds To The Cliffs And Hollows Of The Rocks, Out Of The Sky-thunder Into The Thunder Of The Falling Rivers.

Look Up And Down And Round About You.!

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

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.

Hidden In The Glorious Wildness Like Unmined Gold.

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

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.

I Only Went Out For A Walk And Finally Concluded To Stay Out Till Sundown, For Going Out, I Found, Was Really Going In.

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.

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

Let Children Walk With Nature, Let Them See The Beautiful Blendings And Communions Of Death And Life, Their Joyous Inseparable Unity.

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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

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