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

— John Muir #Botd 1838

"Of all the paths you take in life,
make sure a few of them are dirt."
~ 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

"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. ...

... The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love."
~ 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

"Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,' ... And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. ...

... Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."
~ 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

"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."
~ John Muir

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

"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life."
~ 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

"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."
~ John Muir

"As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".
~ John Muir

"We all flow from one fountain."
~ John Muir

"All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky ... the spot where we chance to be always seems the best."
~ John Muir