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Perhaps The Profession Of Doing Good May Be Full, But Every Body Should Be Kind At Least To Himself. Take A Course Of Good Water And Air, And In The Eternal Youth Of Nature You May Renew Your Own. Go Quietly, Alone; No Harm Will Befall You. Some Have Strange, Morbid Fears As Soon As They Find Themselves With Nature, Even In The Kindest And Wildest Of Her Solitudes, Like Very Sick Children Afraid Of Their Mother-as If God Were Dead And The Devil Were King.

-John Muir

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Perhaps The Profession Of

John Muir

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Perhaps The Profession Of Doing Good May Be Full, But Every Body Should Be Kind At Least To Himself. Take A Course Of Good Water And Air, And In The Eternal Youth Of Nature You May Renew Your Own. Go Quietly, Alone; No Harm Will Befall You. Some Have Strange, Morbid Fears As Soon As They Find Themselves With Nature, Even In The Kindest And Wildest Of Her Solitudes, Like Very Sick Children Afraid Of Their Mother-as If God Were Dead And The Devil Were King.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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.

Earth Has No Sorrow That Earth Can Not Heal.

What Wonders Lie In Every Mountain Day!

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.

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Hidden In The Glorious Wildness Like Unmined Gold.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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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.

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

Man Is Always And Everywhere A Blight On The Landscape.

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

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Spring Work Is Going On With Joyful Enthusiasm.

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

In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth.

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

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

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

…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.

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How Glorious A Greeting The Sun Gives The Mountains!

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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.

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

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To Myself, Mountains Are The Beginning And The End Of All Natural Scenery; In Them, And In The Forms Of Inferior Landscape That Lead To Them, My Affections Are Wholly Bound Up.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 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.

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".

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

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

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.

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

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.

[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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

There Are No Accidents In Nature.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Mountain Ranges

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

Go Quietly Alone, No Harm Will Befall You.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our Lives Are Rounded With A Sleep.

Memories May Escape The Action Of The Will, May Sleep A Long Time, But When Stirred By The Right Influence, Though That Influence Be Light As A Shadow, They Flash Into Full Stature And Life With Everything In Place

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

Every Good Thing Great And Small Needs Defense

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

Climb The Mountains And Get Their Good Tidings.

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.

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

Some People Miss Flesh As A Drunkard Misses His Dram.

The Sun Shines Not On Us But In Us.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

No Temple Made With Hands Can Compare With Yosemite. Every Rock In Its Walls Seems To Glow With Life...awful In Stern, Immovable Majesty, How Softly These Rocks Are Adorned, And How Fine And Reassuring The Company They Keep: Their Feet Among Beautiful Groves And Meadows, Their Brows In The Sky, A Thousand Flowers Leaning Confidingly Against Their Feet, Bathed In Floods Of Water, Floods Of Light.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Characteristics

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Going Into The Woods, Is Going Home

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Any Fool Can Destroy Trees, They Cannot Run Away.

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!

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

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.

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

Nothing Can Be Done Well At A Speed Of Forty Miles A Day. The Multitude Of Mixed, Novel Impressions Rapidly Piled On One Another Make Only A Dreamy, Bewildering, Swirling Blur, Most Of Which Is Unrememberable.

Heaven Knows That John The Baptist Was Not More Eager To Get All His Fellow Sinners Into The Jordan Than I To Baptize All Of Mine In The Beauty Of God's Mountains.

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

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

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

The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite.

I Wandered Away On A Glorious Botanical And Geological Excursion, Which Has Lasted Nearly Fifty Years And Is Not Yet Completed, Always Happy And Free, Poor And Rich, Without Thought Of A Diploma Or Of Making A Name, Urged On And On Through Endless, Inspiring Godful Beauty.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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?

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

Nothing Truly Wild Is Unclean.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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