Quotes from book
My First Summer in the Sierra

Name: My First Summer in the Sierra
Author: John Muir

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

“This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Reprinted in The Wild Muir ISBN 0-939666-75-8 page 38, and Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 234
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 195
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“Nothing truly wild is unclean.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Source: My First Summer in the Sierra

“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, pages 243-244
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 248 <br class="br">First line 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. <br class="br">Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 253
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“Everything is flowing — going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks …. While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature's warm heart.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 277
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 212
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

“Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 204
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869