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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.

-John Muir

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Nature Has Always Something

John Muir

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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.

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

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

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

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

Climb The Mountains And Get Their Good Tidings.

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.

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

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.

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.

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".

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

Mountain Ranges

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.

Most People Are On The World, Not In It.

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

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

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Are No Accidents In Nature.

The Power Of Imagination Is Infinite.

Power Of Imagination

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.

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

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.

Hidden In The Glorious Wildness Like Unmined Gold.

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest.

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

Technical Knowledge

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

Our Lives Are Rounded With A Sleep.

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 The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Going To The Mountains Is Going Home.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Going Into The Woods, Is Going Home

John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Earth Has No Sorrow That Earth Can Not Heal.

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

I Never Saw A Discontented Tree.

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.

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

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?

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!

What Wonders Lie In Every Mountain Day!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Look! Nature Is Overflowing With The Grandeur Of God!

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.

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.

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

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".

I Always Enjoyed The Hearty Society Of A Snowstorm.

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.

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.

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.

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

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

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

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?

God Cannot Save Them From Fools.

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.

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

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.

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.

Do Behold The King In His Glory, King Sequoia. Behold! Behold! Seems All I Can Say.... Well May I Fast, Not From Bread But From Business, Bookmaking, Duty Doing & Other Trifles.... I’m In The Woods Woods Woods, & They Are In Mee-ee-ee.... I Wish I Were Wilder & So Bless Sequoia I Will Be.

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.

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

I Care To Live Only To Entice People To Look At Nature’s Loveliness.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Everybody Needs Beauty As Well As Bread.

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.

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 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.

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

When One Tugs At A Single Thing In Nature, He Finds It Attached To The Rest Of The World.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Man Has Injured Every Animal He Has Touched.

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.

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

Any Fool Can Destroy Trees, They Cannot Run Away.

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

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.

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

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.

Long, Blue, Spiky-edged Shadows Crept Out Across The Snow-fields, While A Rosy Glow, At First Scarce Discernible, Gradually Deepened And Suffused Every Mountain-top, Flushing The Glaciers And The Harsh Crags Above Them. This Was The Alpenglow, To Me The Most Impressive Of All The Terrestrial Manifestations Of God. 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.

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.

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

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.

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