Top 280 John Muir Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit – the cosmos?”

— John Muir

202. “Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life with everything in place.”

— John Muir

203. “Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.”

— John Muir

204. “Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape.”

— John Muir

205. “In the woods is perpetual youth.”

— John Muir

206. “John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.”

— John Muir

207. “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.”

— John Muir

208. “Beauty beyond thought everywhere, beneath, above, made and being made forever.”

— John Muir

209. “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.”

— John Muir

210. “No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons.”

— John Muir

211. “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.”

— John Muir

212. “At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.”

— John Muir

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

— John Muir

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

— John Muir

215. “Lizards of every temper, style, and color dwell here, seemingly as happy and companionable as the birds and squirrels.”

— John Muir

216. “Here I could stay tethered forever with just bread and water, nor would I be lonely; loved friends and neighbors, as love for everything increased, would seem all the nearer however many the miles and mountains between us.”

— John Muir

217. “God cannot save them from fools.”

— John Muir

218. “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!”

— John Muir

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

— John Muir

220. “Men use care in purchasing a horse, and are neglectful in choosing friends.”

— John Muir

221. “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.”

— John Muir

222. “I have a low opinion of books: they are piles of stones set up to show coming travelers where other minds have been, or at best signal smokes to call attention...”

— John Muir

223. “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.”

— John Muir

224. “We live with our heels as well as head and most of our pleasure comes in that way.”

— John Muir

225. “But think of the hearts of these whales, beating warm against the sea, day and night, through dark and light, on and on for centuries; how the red blood must rush and gurgle in and out, bucketfuls, barrelfuls at a beat!”

— John Muir

226. “An eagle soaring above a sheer cliff, where I suppose its nest is, makes another striking show of life, and helps to bring to mind the other people of the so-called solitude – deer in the forest caring for their young; the strong, well-clad, well-fed bears; the lively throng of squirrels; the blessed birds, great and small, stirring and sweetening the groves; and the clouds of happy insects filling the sky with joyous hum as part and parcel of the down-pouring sunshine.”

— John Muir

227. “A little pure wildness is the one great present want, both of men and sheep.”

— John Muir

228. “Wherever a Scotsman goes, here goes Burns. His grand whole, catholic soul squares with the good of all; therefore we find him in everything, everywhere.”

— John Muir

229. “The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted.”

— John Muir

230. “Never while anything is left of me shall this... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike.”

— John Muir

231. “I always enjoyed the hearty society of a snowstorm.”

— John Muir

232. “Wherever there were glaciers, the world was in a constant state of creation.”

— John Muir

233. “The care-laden commercial lives we lead close our eyes to the operations of God as a workman, though openly carried on that all who will look may see.”

— John Muir

234. “Though it is 2500 feet high, the glacier flowed over its ground as a river flows over a boulder; and since it emerged from the icy sea as from a sepulcher it has been sorely beaten with storms; but from all those deadly, crushing, bitter experiences comes this delicate life and beauty, to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation.”

— John Muir

235. “Strange the faithless fuss made about taking a walk in the safest and pleasantest of all places, a wilderness.”

— John Muir

236. “Wherever we go in the mountains, or indeed in any of God’s wild fields, we find more than we seek.”

— John Muir

237. “Surely a better time must be drawing nigh when godlike human beings will become truly humane, and learn to put their animal fellow mortals in their hearts instead of on their backs or in their dinners. In the mean time we may just as well as not learn to live clean, innocent lives instead of slimy, bloody ones.”

— John Muir

238. “As we sat by the camp-fire the brightness of the sky brought on a long talk with the Indians about the stars; and their eager childlike attention was refreshing to see as compared with the decent, deathlike apathy of weary civilized people, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and care and poor, shallow comfort.”

— John Muir

239. “But it is in the darkest nights, when storms are blowing and the agitated waves are phosphorescent, that the most impressive displays are made.”

— John Muir

240. “Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old.”

— John Muir

241. “Our lives are rounded with a sleep.”

— John Muir

242. “When I was a child in Scotland, I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I’ve been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately, around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness...”

— John Muir

243. “To the sane and free it will hardly seem necessary to cross the continent in search of wild beauty, however easy the way, for they find it in abundance wherever they chance to be.”

— John Muir

244. “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.”

— John Muir

245. “You may be a little cold some nights on mountain tops above the timber-line, but you will see the stars, and by and by you can sleep enough in your town bed. or at least in your grave. Keep awake while you may in mountain mansions so rare.”

— John Muir

246. “But we are governed more than we know, and most when we are wildest.”

— John Muir

247. “As for the Mormons one meets, however their doctrines be regarded, they will be found as rich in human kindness as any people in all our broad land, while the dark memories that cloud their earlier history will vanish from the mind as completely as when we bathe in the fountain azure of the Sierra.”

— John Muir

248. “Then, after a long fireside rest and a glance at my note-book, I cut a few leafy branches for a bed, and fell into the clear, death-like sleep of the tired mountaineer. Early.”

— John Muir

249. “Several times Muir was threatened with a successful business career, but each time he escaped again into the wilderness.”

— John Muir

250. “Surely all God’s people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play.”

— John Muir