“One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.”
1872(?), page 95
John of the Mountains, 1938
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
John Muir 183
Scottish-born American naturalist and author 1838–1914Related quotes

As translated by Arthur Imerti (1964)
The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584)

"Discovering Darwin", Proceedings of the International Anti-Vivisection and Animal Protection congress, held at Washington, D.C. December 8th to 11th, 1913 (1913), p. 152

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 391.

“It is better to be a good human being than to be a bad one. It is just naturally better.”
My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

Sam Harris, Drugs and the Meaning of Life http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ (5 July 2011)
2010s
Context: I have visited both extremes on the psychedelic continuum. The positive experiences were more sublime than I could have ever imagined or than I can now faithfully recall. These chemicals disclose layers of beauty that art is powerless to capture and for which the beauty of Nature herself is a mere simulacrum. It is one thing to be awestruck by the sight of a giant redwood and to be amazed at the details of its history and underlying biology. It is quite another to spend an apparent eternity in egoless communion with it. Positive psychedelic experiences often reveal how wondrously at ease in the universe a human being can be—and for most of us, normal waking consciousness does not offer so much as a glimmer of these deeper possibilities... But as the peaks are high, the valleys are deep. My “bad trips” were, without question, the most harrowing hours I have ever suffered—and they make the notion of hell, as a metaphor if not a destination, seem perfectly apt.

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)