John Muir
John Muir
John Muir also known as "John of the Mountains", was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mileJohn Muir...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEnvironmentalist
Date of Birth21 April 1838
CountryUnited States of America
John Muir quotes about
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra.
Doubly happy, however, is the man whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below
The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness
Certainly this Joaquin Canyon is the most remarkable in many ways of all I have entered.
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. Andfew destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much towardrestoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousandyears to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are stillstanding in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mightyforests of the Sierra.
As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.
We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,-a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.
The battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part of the universal battle between right and wrong.
There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords.
Most people are on the world, not in it-- having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them-- undiffused seporate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but seporate.
Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends.
The power of imagination is infinite.
There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.
Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.