John Muir - Quodid

About

Picture of John Muir

John Muir ( MURE; April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States.

Quotes from John Muir

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.

joy nature body

In nothing does man, with his grand notions of heaven and charity, show forth his innate, 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.

murder animals heaven charity

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

nature sun mountains greeting

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

world nature interconnection

The mountains are calling and I must go.

nature mountains

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

universe wilderness

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

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.

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

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.

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 everyday beauty.

I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found. There is not a "fragment" in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.

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. None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.

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