John Muir Quotes

Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love.

It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.

The indescribable innocence of and beneficence of Nature,-of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter,-such health, such cheer, they afford forever!

Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

The Amen of nature is always a flower.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

How gently rock yon poplars high Against the reach of primrose sky With heaven's pale candles stored.

Hawaii is such a wonderful, healing place for me. I feel so at ease with the natives and love the tranquility of the islands. It is a place to find inner peace and be one with nature.

Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.

In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be; Where all the noises, that on peace intrude, Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee, Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice.

The streams with softest sound are flowing, The grass you almost hear it growing, You hear it now, if e'er you can.

No monster vibration, no snake universe hallucinations. Many tiny jeweled violet flowers along the path of a living brook that looked like Blake's illustration for a canal in grassy Eden: huge Pacific watery shore, Orlovsky dancing naked like Shiva long-haired before giant green waves, titanic cliffs that Wordsworth mentioned in his own Sublime, great yellow sun veiled with mist hanging over the planet's oceanic horizon. No harm.

Nature is what we see - the hill, the afternoon, squirrel, eclipse, the bumblebee. Nay, nature is heaven. Nature is what we hear...

Breath of the winds; dancing flame; peace of the earth; song of the waves.

The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kisst.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

Is not thy home among the flowers?

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

Nature is goodness crystallized.

Somewhere, a sparrow is singing in B minor.

In those vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.

I want people to enjoy the simplicity in the natural.

The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.