JOHN MUIR

"I never saw a discontented tree."

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

"The power of imagination makes us infinite."

"In the beauty and grandeur of individual trees, and in number and variety of species, the Sierra forests surpass all others."

"I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was made for itself."

"Night is coming on and I am filled with indescribable loneliness. Felt feverish; bathed in a black, silent stream."

"Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant."

"No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty."

"This is Nature's own reservation, and every lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by kindly frost it is so well defended."

"Going to the mountains is going home."

"Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal."

"There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself."

"The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware."

"In drying plants, botanists often dry themselves. Dry words and dry facts will not fire hearts."

"In our best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church and the mountains altars."

"Wildness is a necessity."

"Nothing dollarable is safe."

"Everything in Nature called destruction must be creation-a change from beauty to beauty."

"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!"

"Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing."

"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."

"As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail."

"Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life."

"Few places in this world are more dangerous than home."

"To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world."

"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer."

"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"

"Not blind opposition to progress,but opposition to blind progress."

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

"The deeper the solitude the less the sense of loneliness, and the nearer our friends."

"In God's wildness lies the hope of the world."

"If people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish."

"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."

"Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind."

"Every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality."

"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."

"Nothing truly wild is unclean."

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!"

"Go where we will, all the world over, we seem to have been there before."

"The soft light of morning falls upon ripening forests of oak and elm, walnut and hickory, and all Nature is thoughtful and calm."

"All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander."

"The sun shines not on us but in us."

"But we are governed more than we know, and most when we are wildest."

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings."

"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 fool."