John Muir Quotes – As the “Father of our National Parks,” John Muir is credited with initiating many of the United States’ wilderness preservation efforts.
He had an unquenchable passion for nature and adventure and he delighted in inspiring others to get out into the great outdoors.
So, if you’re looking for some motivation, have a look at this extensive collection of John Muir quotations, which will undoubtedly leave you craving for the great outdoors.
Not only you can utilize these John Muir quotations to re-energize yourself, but they are also ideal for anyone looking for Outdoor and Nature Captions for Instagram!
Here are 100 inspirational John Muir quotes for you!
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Inspirational John Muir quotes
1. “Most people are on the world, not in it.”
2. “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark”
3. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”
4. “Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal.”
5. “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
6. “Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees”
7. “Nothing truly wild is unclean.”
8. “Wilderness is a necessity… there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls”
9. “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
10. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”
11. “I never saw a discontented tree”
12. “None of Nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild”
13. “There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself”
14. “There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than a mountain stream”
15. “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
16. “There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties”
17. “One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books”
18. “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
19. “Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen”
20. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.”
21. “Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach”
22. “Who wouldn’t be a mountaineer! Up here all the world’s prizes seem nothing.”
23. “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
24. “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 – mountain dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature’s workshops.”
25. “And into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul”
26. “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
27. “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.”
28. “Come to the woods; for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods”
29. “One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else”
30. “Going to the mountains is going home”
31. “How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!”
32. “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”
33. “Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of a mountaineer.”
34. “We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us”
35. “Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts”
36. “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; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life”
37. “I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong”
38. “The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of our bodies, making them glide and sing”
39. “The power of imagination makes us infinite”
40. “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”
41. “The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day”
42. “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”
43. “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.”
44. “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
45. “Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue”
46. “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.”
47. “I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness”
48. “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.”
49. “Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.”
50. “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”
51. “To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world”
52. “The snow is melting into music”
53. “This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls”
54. “We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men”
55. “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”
56. “Yosemite Park is a place of rest… 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”
57. “The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or indeed the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on”
58. “I must return to the mountains-to Yosemite. I am told that the winter storms there will not be easily borne, but I am bewitched, enchanted, and tomorrow I must start for the great temple to listen to the winter songs and sermons preached and sung only there.”
59. “Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite National Park, strife has been going on around its borders and I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however much of its boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed.”
60. “A queer fellow and a jolly fellow is the grasshopper. Up the mountains he comes on excursions, how high I don’t know, but at least as far and high as Yosemite tourists.”
61. “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away”
62. “The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong”
63. “It seems supernatural, but only because it is not understood”
64. “Wherever there were glaciers, the world was in a constant state of creation.”
65. “Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it”
66. “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.”
67. “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.”
68. “[Yosemite] is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter.”
69. “Down through the middle of the [Yosemite] Valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.”
70. “Ink cannot tell the glow that lights me at this moment in turning to the mountains. I feel strong [enough] to leap Yosemite walls at a bound.”
71. “Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be-still kind. Your animal fellow beings, so seldom regarded in civilization, and every rock-brow and mountain, stream, and lake, and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers; even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds.”
72. “Waking up early on a weekend to hit the trail is a sacrifice made well worth it when you reach a mountain top in time to catch the sunrise. “
73. “When you are hiking through a forest, you have the chance to see the natural world up close. “
74. “Modern life has made the draw of home stronger than ever, but taking the time to unplug and hit the trail is the perfect way to reset and reassess your priorities. “
75. “The good tidings of the mountains are a real thing, just ask any thru-hiker, backpacker, or climber. “
76. “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”
77. “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!”
78. “One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.”
79. “Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach.
80. “Come to the woods; for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods.”
81. “The world is big and I want to get a good look at it before it gets dark.”
82. “The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.”
83. “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
84. “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.”
85. “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.”
86. “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
87. “God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.”
88. “I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money.”
89. “I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.”
90. “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.”
91. “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
92. “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
93. “Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal.”
94. “Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”
95. “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
96. “The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
97. “The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”
98. “The sun shines not on us but in us.”
99. “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
100. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”
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What do you think about the 100 quotes of John Muir? Numerous politicians and world leaders have been moved to action by his articles and have pledged their support for environmental protection and restoration as a result.