John Muir: Quotes about mountains

John Muir was Scottish-born American naturalist and author. Explore interesting quotes on mountain.

John Muir: 366 quotes31 likes

“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.”

John Muir

July 1890, pages 315-316
John of the Mountains, 1938

“Government protection should be thrown around every wild grove and forest on the mountains, as it is around every private orchard, and the trees in public parks. To say nothing of their value as fountains of timber, they are worth infinitely more than all the gardens and parks of towns.”

John Muir

1895, pages 350-351
John of the Mountains, 1938

“Earth hath no sorrows that earth cannot heal, or heaven cannot heal, for the earth as seen in the clean wilds of the mountains is about as divine as anything the heart of man can conceive!”

John Muir

1872(?), page 99 <br class="br">Echoing the 1816 hymn Come Ye Disconsolate http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/y/d/cydiscon.htm by Thomas Moore: "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." <br class="br">John of the Mountains, 1938

“Never have I met another man of such singleness of mind in his devotion to nature as Muir. He lived and moved and had his being as a devotee. … Of himself he took little heed, but no zealous missionary ever went abroad to spread the gospel with his fervor in communicating a love of nature. And with him a love of nature meant an understanding of her laws. He sauntered over the mountains, claiming kinship with the rocks and growing things and gathering them all to his heart. He has told me that he found it necessary, in getting people to listen, to tell them stories such as his immortal tale of Stickeen, but the real hope in his heart was to awaken their interest so they would want to go to nature themselves and to delve into the mysteries of her ways. … Every tree and flower, every bird and stone was to him the outward token of an invisible world in process of making.”

John Muir

Charles Keeler (pages 17-18)
Sierra Club Bulletin - Memorial Issue

“John Muir has been a role model to generations of Californians and to conservationists around the world. He taught us to be active and to enjoy — but at the same time protect — our parks, our beaches, and our mountains.”

John Muir

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, announcing http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/tributes.aspx the selection of the "John Muir-Yosemite Design" for the California State Quarter (29 March 2004)

“Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.”

John Muir

Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 5: The Passes