By John Muir, a lad from Scotland who grew up amidst the vibes of Wisconsin, has earned the title of California’s beloved son. He’s practically the superhero of California’s national parks, saving our stunning wild lands on his lonesome.
This guy was no slouch when it came to putting pen to paper. Digging into his diaries, poems, magazine pieces, and newspaper musings reveals a goldmine of quotes from the man himself. Muir had a romantic way with words, and his writing is a tad more flowery than what you’d find in today’s nature scribblings. You can’t argue with his excitement for nature overall, particularly California’s wild spaces.
And here we are, ready to pass on that excitement to you. Whether you need a catchy Muir quote for your next Instagram post or a writing gig or just want to stash a nugget of inspiration in your hiking pants, we’ve got your back.
John Muir Quotes Nature
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
John Muir
The mountains are calling, and I must go.
John Muir
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
John Muir
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
John Muir
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
John Muir
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.
John Muir
The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
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
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
The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
John Muir
Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.
John Muir
One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.
John Muir
To sit in solitude, to think in solitude with only the music of the stream and the cedar to break the flow of silence, there lies the value of wilderness.
John Muir
The power of wilderness to revive the human spirit is fundamental.
John Muir
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
John Muir
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
John Muir
The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.
John Muir
The battle for conservation cannot be limited to the winning of new conquests. Like liberty, conservation must be fought for unceasingly to protect previous conquests.
John Muir
John Muir Mountain Quotes
Going to the mountains is going home.
John Muir
The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains.
John Muir
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
John Muir
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
John Muir
The mountains are calling, and I must go.
John Muir
The mountains are calling and I must answer, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.
John Muir
The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
John Muir
In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world—the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.
John Muir
The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.
John Muir
To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.
John Muir
Wilderness is a necessity… There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls.
John Muir
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
John Muir
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
John Muir
The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil but of men. Therefore, we are all, in some strange way, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home.
John Muir
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
John Muir
Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.
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
Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.
John Muir
The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
John Muir
Wildness is a necessity. While civilization may be ‘altered to make it more in harmony with human nature,’ the wildness that Muir so loved must be preserved and protected.
John Muir
John Muir Alaska Quotes
- “To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.”
- “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.”
- “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”
- “The world is big, and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
- “The mountains are calling, and I must go.”
- “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
- “The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.”
- “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
- “Wilderness is a necessity… There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls.”
- “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
John Muir’s Quotes About Life
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
John Muir
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
John Muir
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir
The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
John Muir
The world is big, and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
John Muir
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.
John Muir
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
John Muir
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
John Muir
The mountains are calling, and I must go.
John Muir
John Muir’s Quotes About Trees
God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.
John Muir
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir
Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.
John Muir
God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.
John Muir
The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it.
John Muir
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
John Muir
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
John Muir
Going to the woods is going home.
John Muir
The trees, like the longings in our hearts, yearn for the sky above. They reach, they stretch, and in doing so, they teach us about the unbounded possibilities of life.
John Muir
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed—chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones.
John Muir
