John Muir Quotes

It's not at all naturally human to see something like the Grand Canyon as beautiful.

The beauty of the landscape - where sand, water, reeds, birds, buildings, and people all somehow flowed together - has never left me.

The highs were high, the awe, I'm not a religious person, but I'll tell you, to be in the azure blue of the Gulf Stream as if, as you're breathing, you're looking down miles and miles and miles, to feel the majesty of this blue planet we live on, it's awe-inspiring.

Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

The Amen of nature is always a flower.

I've got everything I need: a nice piece of land with hawks and owls and incredible sunsets, and the good will of my neighbors.

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.

I have looked on scenery as a strange and on scenery more grand, but on scenery at once so strange and so grand I have never looked and probably never shall again.

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

There's something overwhelming about being in raw nature. It's got an aura about it is that is really kind of majestic and spiritual.

I live near a beautiful park, and when I walk around it, the beauty of it can take your breath away. It makes you realize there is something bigger, certainly bigger than me.

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.

Fills The air around with beauty.

Gentle day's flower - The hummingbird competes With the stillness of the air.

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.

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

How sweet the morning air is! ...How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

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.

We may learn anew what compassion and beauty are, and pause to listen to the Earth's music.

I will tell you where there is power: where the dew lies upon the hills, and the rain has moistened the roots of the various plant; where the sunshine pours steadily; where the brook runs babbling along, there is a beneficent power.

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!

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.

No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life...Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep: Their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light.

Gardening is the instrument of grace.