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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.

-John Muir

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One Is Constantly Reminded

John Muir

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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.

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

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

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.

I Never Saw A Discontented Tree.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Divine Love Is The Sublime Boss Of The Universe.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Man Is Always And Everywhere A Blight On The Landscape.

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.

...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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

I Am Hopelessly And Forever A Mountaineer.

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!

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.

While Cares Will Drop Off Like Autumn Leaves.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Nothing Truly Wild Is Unclean.

Spring Work Is Going On With Joyful Enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

God Cannot Save Them From Fools.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Going To The Mountains Is Going Home.

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.

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

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

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.

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

What Wonders Lie In Every Mountain Day!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

No Synonym For God Is So Perfect As Beauty.

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

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

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

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.

Climb The Mountains And Get Their Good Tidings.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The Sun Shines Not On Us But In Us.

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

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

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?

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.

The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Everybody Needs Beauty As Well As Bread.

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

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

Technical Knowledge

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.

The Power Of Imagination Is Infinite.

Power Of Imagination

A Few Minutes Ago Every Tree Was Excited, Bowing To The Roaring Storm, Waving, Swirling, Tossing Their Branches In Glorious Enthusiasm Like Worship. But Though To The Outer Ear These Trees Are Now Silent, Their Songs Never Cease. Every Hidden Cell Is Throbbing With Music And Life, Every Fiber Thrilling Like Harp Strings, While Incense Is Ever Flowing From The Balsam Bells And Leaves. No Wonder The Hills And Groves Were God's First Temples, And The More They Are Cut Down And Hewn Into Cathedrals And Churches, The Farther Off And Dimmer Seems The Lord Himself.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.‎

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.

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.

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.

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!

How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.

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

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

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.

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

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 Water In Music The Oar Forsakes. The Air In Music The Wing Forsakes. All Things In Move In Music And Write It. The Mouse, Lizard, And Grasshopper Sing Together On The Turlock Sands, Sing With The Morning Stars.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I 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.

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

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

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.

Most People Are On The World, Not In It.

The Redwood Is One Of The Few Conifers That Sprout From The Stump And Roots, And It Declares Itself Willing To Begin Immediately To Repair The Damage Of The Lumberman And Also That Of The Forest-burner.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I 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.

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

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 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 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.

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.

[concerning The Water Ouzel, Now Called American Dipper:] In A General Way His Music Is That Of The Streams Refined And Spiritualized. The Deep Booming Notes Of The Falls Are In It, The Trills Of Rapids, The Gurgling Of Margin Eddies, The Low Whispering Of Level Reaches, And The Sweet Tinkle Of Separate Drops Oozing From The Ends Of Mosses And Falling Into Tranquil Pools.

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

Look Up And Down And Round About You.!

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

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.

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

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.

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

I Always Enjoyed The Hearty Society Of A Snowstorm.

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

Man Has Injured Every Animal He Has Touched.

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.

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

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

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

Characteristics

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 Temple Made With Hands Can Compare With Yosemite.

Come To The Woods, For Here Is Rest.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Grand Show Is Eternal It Is Always Sunrise Somewhere

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

...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.

In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

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