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1 " On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. ... Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. "
― John Muir , A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
2 " When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. "
― John Muir
3 " This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death! "
― John Muir , My First Summer in the Sierra
4 " Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance. "
― John Muir , John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings
5 " Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. "
6 " 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. "
7 " Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it. "
8 " A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm,waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm likeworship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, theirsongs never cease. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914) "
9 " Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm. "
― John Muir , The Wilderness World of John Muir
10 " The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. "
11 " The mountains are calling and I must go. "
12 " 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 , The Mountains of California
13 " 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 , Our National Parks
14 " The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark. "
15 " 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 , John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
16 " I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news "
17 " This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. "
18 " We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. "
19 " Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt. "
20 " Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue. "
