John Muir
John Muir
John Muir also known as "John of the Mountains", was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mileJohn Muir...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEnvironmentalist
Date of Birth21 April 1838
CountryUnited States of America
wall sky mountain
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.
flower dark sky
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.
summer country sky
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.
spiritual doors sky
To lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends. ... You cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain, sky, and mountains ray beauty which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming at a camp-fire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature.
bring brought loss man needs personal poverty relationships ultimate
Brought into right relationships with the wilderness, man would see that his appropriation of Earth's resourcesbeyond his personal needs would only bring imbalance and begat ultimate loss and poverty by all.
below doubly happiness lies lights lofty man mountain shine tops whom within
Doubly happy, however, is the man whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below
chose earthquake falling lightning nature split stormy tender torrent
Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries.
accident beauty seems smile
To some, beauty seems but an accident of creation: to Muir it was the very smile of God.
continents dawn dew dried earth eternal forever grand round sea shower sunrise
The 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.
connected universe
Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.
battle cannot conflict count eternal expect fighting forests glad good noble strive striving surely watching
The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it ... So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.
woods wilderness
Come to the woods, for here is rest.
aboriginal avail cannot defend destroy fool grand nor oldest perfect plant planting run singing strength themselves three took trees waving
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. Andfew destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much towardrestoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousandyears to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are stillstanding in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mightyforests of the Sierra.
aboriginal avail cannot defend destroy few fool fools-and-foolishness forests grand mighty nor oldest perfect plant planting restoring run singing standing strength themselves thousand three took toward trees waving
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra.