When a man plants a tree, he plants himself. — John Muir

The Big Tree is Nature’s forest masterpiece, and so far as I know, the greatest of living things. — John Muir

We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men. — John Muir

I never saw a discontented tree. — John Muir

Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts . . . — John Muir

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

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. — John Muir

The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right. — John Muir

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. Even so, God cannot save them from fools. — John Muir

I have enjoyed the trees & scenery of KY exceedingly. How shall I ever tell of the miles & miles of beauty that have been flowing into me in such measure? — John Muir

It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur. The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and streams are so delicately harmonized, they are mostly hidden. — John Muir

Any fool can destroy trees, they cannot run away. — John Muir

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. — John Muir

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

Yosemite Park… None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree. — John Muir

There are no accidents in Nature. — John Muir

Look! Nature is overflowing with the grandeur of God! — John Muir

In the eternal youth of Nature, you may renew your own. — John Muir

Tug on anything in nature and you will find it connected to everything else. — John Muir

Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions. — John Muir

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual. — John Muir

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

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks. — John Muir

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you. — John Muir

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts. — John Muir

How lavish is Nature building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing, ever beautiful. — John Muir

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

It may not be easy, life isn’t easy, but dreams keep you alive. — John Muir

Our lives are rounded with a sleep. — John Muir

No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them. — John Muir

What is worthwhile in life? I think it is worth living and dreaming. If you don’t you may be dead anyhow–inside. — John Muir

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt. — John Muir

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity. — John Muir

Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested. — John Muir

Nature has always something rare to show us… and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof. — John Muir

I’ve had a great time in South America and South Africa. Indeed it now seems that on this pair of wild hot continents I’ve enjoyed the most fruitful year of my life. — John Muir

Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind. — John Muir

The blessings of one mountain day, whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever. — John Muir

I am well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the mountains. — John Muir

Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings. — John Muir

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

Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way. — John Muir

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life…as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures. — John Muir

Come to the woods, for here is rest. — John Muir

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. — John Muir

When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world. — John Muir

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. — John Muir

How narrow we selfish conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation! — John Muir

I bade adieu to mechanical inventions, determined to devote the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God. — John Muir

I wish I knew where I was going. Doomed to be carried of the spirit into the wilderness, I suppose. I wish I could be more moderate in my desires, but I cannot, and so there is no rest. — John Muir

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! — John Muir

Wherever we go in the mountains, we find more than we seek. — John Muir

Going to the mountains is going home. — John Muir

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. — John Muir

There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than a mountain stream. — John Muir

Heaven knows that John the Baptist was not more eager to get all his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of God’s mountains. — John Muir

I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains. — John Muir

The mountains are calling and I must go. — John Muir

Of all the mountain ranges I have climbed, I like the Sierra Nevada the best. — John Muir

One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books. — John Muir

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. — John Muir

Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach. — John Muir

Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends. — John Muir

What wonders lie in every mountain day! — John Muir

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! — John Muir

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. — John Muir

The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men. — John Muir

Of all the fire mountains which like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest. — John Muir

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

Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen. — John Muir

I…am always glad to touch the living rock again and dip my hand in the high mountain air. — John Muir

Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains. — John Muir

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. — John Muir

Who reports the works and ways of the clouds, those wondrous creations coming into being every day like freshly upheaved mountains? — John Muir

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. — John Muir

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread. — John Muir

Yet through all this stress the forest is maintained in marvelous beauty. — John Muir

One must labor for beauty as for bread. — John Muir

Beauty beyond thought everywhere, beneath, above, made and being made forever. — John Muir

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

Many of Nature’s finest lessons are to be found in her storms, and if careful to keep in right relations with them, we may go safely abroad with them, rejoicing in the grandeur and beauty of their works and ways. — John Muir

Everybody needs beauty…places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike. — John Muir

Most people are on the world, not in it. — John Muir

The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark. — John Muir

Wherever there were glaciers, the world was in a constant state of creation. — John Muir

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world. — John Muir

In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world. — John Muir

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. — John Muir

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. — John Muir

The world, we are told, was made especially for man–a presumption not supported by all the facts. — John Muir

Every other civilized nation in the world has been compelled to care for its forests, and so must we if waste and destruction are not to go on to the bitter end, leaving America as barren as Palestine or Spain. — John Muir

The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day. — John Muir

The last days of this glacial winter are not yet past; we live in ‘creation’s dawn.’ The morning stars still sing together, and the world, though made, is still being made and becoming more beautiful every day. — John Muir

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

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? — John Muir

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. — John Muir

Divine love is the sublime boss of the universe. — John Muir

Listen to them! How wholly infused with God is this one big word of love that we call the world! — John Muir

But the darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. — John Muir

I ran home in the moonlight with long, firm strides; for the sun–love made me strong. — John Muir

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? — John Muir

There is a love of wild Nature in everybody, an ancient mother–love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties. — John Muir

To ask me whether I could endure to live without friends is absurd. It is easy enough to live out of material sight of friends, but to live without human love is impossible. — John Muir

Rocks and waters, etc., are words of God, and so are men. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. — John Muir