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John Muir cytaty
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John Muir – szkocko-amerykański przyrodnik, pisarz, filozof środowiska, jeden z pierwszych rzeczników ochrony dzikiej przyrody w Stanach Zjednoczonych.

Jego listy, eseje i książki opowiadające o jego przygodach w dzikich ostępach, zwłaszcza w górach Sierra Nevada w Kalifornii cieszyły się bardzo dużą popularnością i były czytane przez miliony ludzi. Jego aktywne zaangażowanie na rzecz ochrony środowiska naturalnego przyczyniło się do zachowania Yosemite Valley, Parku Narodowego Sekwoi i innych obszarów dzikiej przyrody. Założył Sierra Club – jedno z najważniejszych stowarzyszeń zaangażowanych w ochronę środowiska naturalnego w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Na jego cześć został nazwany liczący 340 km szlak turystyczny w górach Sierra Nevada . Inne miejsca nazwane na jego cześć to m.in.: Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir oraz lodowiec Muira. W Szkocji jego imieniem nazwano liczący 209 km szlak .

W swoim późniejszym życiu Muir większość czasu poświęcał ochronie zachodnich lasów Ameryki Północnej. Dzięki niemu do Kongresu Stanów Zjednoczonych trafił projekt przyjętej w 1890 roku ustawy tworzącej Park Narodowy Yosemite. Wyrażana w jego dziełach duchowa jakość i entuzjazm wobec natury zainspirowały czytelników, w tym kongresmenów i prezydentów, do podjęcia działań na rzecz ochrony dużych obszarów dzikiej przyrody. Życie Muira, dziś nazywanego „Ojcem Parków Narodowych” , zostało uwiecznione m.in. przez National Park Service w krótkim filmie dokumentalnym.

John Muir jest uznawany za „inspirację dla Szkotów i Amerykanów”. Jego biograf, Steven J. Holmes, uważa że Muir stał się „jednym z patronów działalności środowiskowej dwudziestowiecznej Ameryki”, zarówno politycznej jak i rekreacyjnej. Jego dzieła są często przytaczane i omawiane w książkach i czasopismach, jest również często cytowany przez fotografów przyrody, m.in. przez Ansela Adamsa. „Muir gruntownie ukształtował same kategorie, przez które Amerykanie rozumieją i wyobrażają sobie ich relację ze światem przyrody”, pisze Holmes. Muir był ekologicznym myślicielem, politycznym rzecznikiem i religijnym prorokiem, którego dzieła stały się osobistym przewodnikiem ku naturze dla wielu osób, co uczyniło go „prawie wszechobecnym” we współczesnej świadomości środowiskowej. Według autora Williama Andersona, Muir egzemplifikował „archetyp naszej jedności z ziemią”, natomiast biograf Donald Worster uważa, że misją Muira było „uratowanie amerykańskiej duszy od całkowitego poddania się materializmowi”. 21 kwietnia 2013 roku w Szkocji, w 175. rocznicę urodzin Johna Muira, po raz pierwszy obchodzono John Muir Day, oddając hołd przyrodnikowi. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. Kwiecień 1838 – 24. Grudzień 1914
John Muir Fotografia
John Muir: 183   Cytaty 0   Polubień

John Muir: Cytaty po angielsku

“I will follow my instincts, be myself for good or ill, and see what will be the upshot. 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.”

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John Muir

attributed to a Muir "autobiographical notebook" in Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 144
1870s

“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. This one noble park is big enough and rich enough for a whole life of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody, no matter how benumbed with care, encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. 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.”

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John Muir

1895, page 350
John of the Mountains, 1938

“This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest … in our magnificent National Parks … Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world.”

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John Muir

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
1910s

“I have known many dogs, and many a story I could tell of their wisdom and devotion; but to none do I owe so much as to Stickeen. At first the least promising and least known of my dog-friends, he suddenly became the best known of them all. Our storm-battle for life brought him to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.”

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John Muir

Terry Gifford, LLO, page 696
1900s, Stickeen (1909)

“No portion of the world is so barren as not to yield a rich and precious harvest of divine truth.”

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John Muir

"Arctic Coal Mines — The Diomede Bay Islands", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 18 of 21 part series "Cruise of the Corwin") dated 25 August 1881, published 25 October 1881; reprinted in The Cruise of the Corwin http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/cruise_of_the_corwin/default.aspx (1917), chapter 17: Meeting the Point Barrow Expedition
1880s

“Happy will be the men who, having the power and the love and the benevolent forecast to [create a park], will do it. They will not be forgotten. The trees and their lovers will sing their praises, and generations yet unborn will rise up and call them blessed.”

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John Muir

"The Basin of the Columbia River" in Picturesque California (1888-1890); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 22
1880s

“Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built; and rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.”

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John Muir książka My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 287
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“No one of the rocks seems to call me now, nor any of the distant mountains. Surely this Merced and Tuolumne chapter of my life is done.”

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John Muir

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (September 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents
1870s

“How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! … In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make — leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents, or piled stone — we all dwell in a house of one room — the world with the firmament for its roof — and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.”

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John Muir

18 July 1890, page 321
John of the Mountains, 1938

“In God's wildness lies the hope of the world — the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.”

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John Muir

July 1890, page 317
John of the Mountains, 1938

“Rocks and waters, etc., are words of God and so are men. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.”

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John Muir

letter http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/ref/collection/muirletters/id/9847/show/9846 to Catharine Merrill, from New Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Valley (9 June 1872); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 9: Persons and Problems
1870s

“Storms of every sort, torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, "convulsions of nature," etc., however mysterious and lawless at first sight they may seem, are only harmonious notes in the song of creation, varied expressions of God's love.”

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John Muir

" The Fountains and Streams of the Yosemite National Park http://books.google.com/books?id=2CsRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA556", The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXXXVII, number 519 (January 1901) pages 556-565 (at page 565); reprinted in Our National Parks http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/our_national_parks/ (1901), chapter 8: The Fountains and Streams of the Yosemite National Park
1900s, Our National Parks (1901)

“I never have held death in contempt, though in the course of my explorations I have oftentimes felt that to meet one's fate on a noble mountain, or in the heart of a glacier, would be blessed as compared with death from disease, or from some shabby lowland accident. But the best death, quick and crystal-pure, set so glaringly open before us, is hard enough to face, even though we feel gratefully sure that we have already had happiness enough for a dozen lives.”

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John Muir

Terry Gifford, LLO, page 693
1900s, Stickeen (1909)

“The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang — home-going. So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit — waited on, watched over, noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own heaven-dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast — all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity. 'Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.”

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John Muir

pages 439-440
("Trees towering … into eternity" are the next-to-last lines of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge.)
John of the Mountains, 1938

“The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. … So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.”

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John Muir

pages 271-284 (at page 276)
1890s, The National Parks and Forest Reservations, 1895

“I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found.”

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John Muir

September 1874, page 191
John of the Mountains, 1938

“[When asked about the word "hike":] I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains — not hike! Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It's a beautiful word. 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,' 'To the Holy Land.' 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.”

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John Muir

statement by Muir as remembered by Albert W. Palmer in The Mountain Trail and its Message http://books.google.com/books?id=odROAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA28 (1911), pages 27-28
1910s

“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; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.”

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John Muir

June 1890, page 299
John of the Mountains, 1938

“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.”

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John Muir

1872(?), page 92
John of the Mountains, 1938

“I don't think Mr. Harriman is very rich. He has not as much money as I have. I have all I want and Mr. Harriman has not.”

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John Muir

memorial volume Edward Henry Harriman http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/edward_henry_harriman.aspx (1911)
1910s

“Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.”

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John Muir

24 March 1895, page 337
John of the Mountains, 1938

“There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords.”

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John Muir

Źródło: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 5: Through Florida Swamps and Forests, page 151

“One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature — inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last.”

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John Muir książka My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 279
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“Many of Nature's finest lessons are to be found in her storms, and if careful to keep in right relations with them, we may go safely abroad with them, rejoicing in the grandeur and beauty of their works and ways.”

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John Muir

Terry Gifford, LLO, pages 686-687
1900s, Stickeen (1909)

“Good walkers can go anywhere in these hospitable mountains without artificial ways.”

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John Muir

letter to Howard Palmer (12 December 1912); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 17, II
1910s

“Many lawless mysteries vanish, and harmonies take their places.”

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John Muir

Źródło: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 9: The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks

“If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon.”

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John Muir

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 12: How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
Advice for visitors to Yosemite given by John Muir at age 74 years. Compare advice given by the 37-year-old Muir above.
1910s

“Fain would I describe the glories of those months in the ice-world — the beautiful and terrible network of crevasses, the clustering pinnacles, the thousand streams ringing and gurgling in azure channels cut in the living body of the glacier, the glorious radiance of the sunbeams falling on crystal dale and hill, the rosy glow of the dawn and sunset, the march of the clouds on the mountains, and the mysterious splendor of the auroras when the nights grow long, etc., etc., etc. But this would require a volume, while here I have only space to add — Go to Alaska, go and see.”

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John Muir

" Alaska http://books.google.com/books?id=h40OAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA287", The American Geologist volume XI, number 5 (May 1893) pages 287-299 (at page 299)
1910s

“Most interesting forest I have seen in my whole life.”

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John Muir

journal entry http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/ref/collection/muirjournals/id/3766/show/3742 (24 October 1911) concerning Araucaria braziliensis in southern Brazil; published in John Muir's Last Journey, edited by Michael P. Branch (Island Press, 2001), page 88
1910s

“I always enjoyed the hearty society of a snowstorm.”

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John Muir

19(?) July 1890, page 321
John of the Mountains, 1938