Background Image

...

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.

-John Muir

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

How Many Hearts With

John Muir

...

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.

Views: 9

Topic

More From John Muir

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

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.

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 Used To Envy The Father Of Our Race, Dwelling As He Did In Contact With The New-made Fields And Plants Of Eden; But I Do So No More, Because I Have Discovered That I Also Live In "creation's Dawn." The Morning Stars Still Sing Together, And The World, Not Yet Half Made, Becomes More Beautiful Every Day.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

To Ask Me Whether I Could Endure To Live Without Friends Is Absurd. It Is Easy Enough To Live Out Of Material Sight Of Friends, But To Live Without Human Love Is Impossible.

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.

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

Characteristics

They Tell Us That Plants Are Not Like Man Immortal, But Are Perishable-soul -less. I Think That Is Something That We Know Exactly Nothing About.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.

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.

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

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.

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

...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.

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

Hidden In The Glorious Wildness Like Unmined Gold.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

God Cannot Save Them From Fools.

The Grand Show Is Eternal It Is Always Sunrise Somewhere

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Am Hopelessly And Forever A Mountaineer.

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

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

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.

Man Has Injured Every Animal He Has Touched.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Hiking. I Don't Like Either The Word Or The Thing. People Ought To Saunter In The Mountains...the Se Mountains Are Our Holy Land, And We Ought To Saunter Through Them Reverently, Not 'hike' Through Them.

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

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

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".

What Wonders Lie In Every Mountain Day!

The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite.

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

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

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.

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.

In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Every Good Thing Great And Small Needs Defense

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

Look! Nature Is Overflowing With The Grandeur Of God!

Man Is Always And Everywhere A Blight On The Landscape.

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.

Some People Miss Flesh As A Drunkard Misses His Dram.

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

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.

One Can Make A Day Of Any Size

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

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

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.

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

Mountain Ranges

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No Words Will Ever Describe The Exquisite Beauty And Charm Of This Mountain Park – Nature’s Landscape Garden At Once Tenderly Beautiful And Sublime. No Wonder It Draws Nature-lovers From All Over The World.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing Truly Wild Is Unclean.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Everybody Needs Beauty As Well As Bread.

When A Man Plants A Tree, He Plants Himself.

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.

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

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

…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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wander A Whole Summer If You Can. Time Will Not Be Taken From The Sum Of Life. Instead Of Shortening, It Will Definitely Lengthen It And Make You Truly Immortal.

Our Lives Are Rounded With A Sleep.

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.

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.

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.

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

The Power Of Imagination Is Infinite.

Power Of Imagination

Earth Has No Sorrow That Earth Can Not Heal.

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.

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.

The Blessings Of One Mountain Day, Whatever His Fate, Long Life, Short Life, Stormy Or Calm, He Is Rich Forever.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Look Up And Down And Round About You.!

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.

Take A Course In Good Water And Air; And In The Eternal Youth Of Nature You May Renew Your Own. Go Quietly, Alone; No Harm Will Befall You.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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!

Most People Are On The World, Not In It.

Trending Author

Walter Chrysler

Category