John Muir† Quotes

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

John Muir†

I have a low opinion of books; they are but piles of stones set up to show travelers where other minds have been, or at best smoke signals to call attention... One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cart load of books.

John Muir†

Keep close to Nature's heart, yourself; and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

John Muir†

If my soul could get away from this so-called prison, be granted all the list of attributes generally bestowed on spirits, my first ramble on spirit-wings would not be among the volcanoes of the moon. Nor should I follow the sunbeams to their sources in the sun. I should hover about the beauty of our own good star. I should not go moping around the tombs, nor around the artificial desolation of men. 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 communions with other powers and expressions of matter. And I should go to the very center of our globe and read the whole splendid page from the beginning.

John Muir†