“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.”
Source: John Muir’s Incredible Travel Memoirs: A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, The Mountains of California, Travels in Alaska, Steep Trails… (Illustrated): Adventure Memoirs & Wilderness Studies from the Naturalist, Environmental Philosopher and Early Advocate of Preservation of Wilderness, the Author of The Yosemite and Picturesque California
“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?”
Source: The range of light: photographs
“Tell me what you will of the benefactions of city civilization, of the sweet security of streets-all as part of the natural upgrowth of man towards the high destiny we hear so much of. I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found. If the death exhalations that brood the broad towns in which we so fondly compact ourselves were made visible, we should flee as from a plague. All are more or less sick; there is not a perfectly sane man in San Francisco.”
Source: John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations
“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.”
Source: The Wilderness World of John Muir
“When a man plants a tree, he plants himself.”
Source: STEEP TRAILS: California - Utah - Nevada - Washington - Oregon - The Grand Canyon: Adventure Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Nature Essays and Wilderness Studies from the author of The Yosemite, Our National Parks, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf & Picturesque California
“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.”
Source: John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
“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 out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. During a man's life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees-tens of centuries old-that have been destroyed.”
Source: Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, My First Summer in the Sierra, the Mountains of California, Stickeen, Selected Essays
“The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted.”
Source: John Muir: Nature Writings
“In nothing does man, with his grand notions of heaven and charity, show forth his innate, low-bred, 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.”
Source: John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations
“In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government”
Source: JOHN MUIR Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies & Letters (Illustrated): Picturesque California, The Treasures of the Yosemite, Our National Parks, Steep Trails, Travels in Alaska, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Save the Redwoods, The Cruise of the Corwin and more
“Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.”
Source: JOHN MUIR Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies & Letters (Illustrated): Picturesque California, The Treasures of the Yosemite, Our National Parks, Steep Trails, Travels in Alaska, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Save the Redwoods, The Cruise of the Corwin and more
“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.”
Source: Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, My First Summer in the Sierra, the Mountains of California, Stickeen, Selected Essays
“A man, in his books, may be said to walk the earth a long time after he is gone.”
“Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach.”
Source: JOHN MUIR’S CALIFORNIA COLLECTION: My First Summer in the Sierra, Picturesque California, The Mountains of California, The Yosemite & Our National Parks (Illustrated): Adventure Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Nature Writings and Wilderness Essays
“Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape.”
“Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen”
“They tell us that plants are not like man immortal, but are perishable-soul -less. I think that is something that we know exactly nothing about.”
“The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men.”
Source: JOHN MUIR’S CALIFORNIA COLLECTION: My First Summer in the Sierra, Picturesque California, The Mountains of California, The Yosemite & Our National Parks (Illustrated): Adventure Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Nature Writings and Wilderness Essays
“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 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.”
“Man and other civilized animals are the only creatures that ever become dirty.”
Source: The Wilderness Journeys
“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?”
Source: John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations
“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.”
“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.”
Source: Northwest Passages - From the Pen of John Muir: In California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska
“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.”
“In every country the mountains are fountains, not only of rivers but of men. Therefore we all are born mountaineers, the offspring of rock and sunshine.”
“Man has injured every animal he has touched.”
Source: John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
“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.”
Source: JOHN MUIR Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies & Letters (Illustrated): Picturesque California, The Treasures of the Yosemite, Our National Parks, Steep Trails, Travels in Alaska, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Save the Redwoods, The Cruise of the Corwin and more
“Men use care in purchasing a horse, and are neglectful in choosing friends.”
“A little pure wildness is the one great present want, both of men and sheep.”
Source: Wilderness Essays
“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.”
Source: The Yosemite: John Muir's quest to preserve the 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.”
Source: John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings
“We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men.”
Source: John Muir’s Incredible Travel Memoirs: A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, The Mountains of California, Travels in Alaska, Steep Trails… (Illustrated): Adventure Memoirs & Wilderness Studies from the Naturalist, Environmental Philosopher and Early Advocate of Preservation of Wilderness, the Author of The Yosemite and Picturesque California
“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”
Source: THE ALASKA ACCOUNT of John Muir: Travels in Alaska, The Cruise of the Corwin, Stickeen & Alaska Days with John Muir (Illustrated): Adventure Memoirs and Wilderness Essays from the author of The Yosemite, Our National Parks, The Mountains of California, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Picturesque California, Steep Trails
