Everett Ruess Quotes & Sayings

I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bread by cities ... it is enough that i am surrounded by beauty. — Everett Ruess

I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself? — Everett Ruess

I suppose a great and soul filling love is perhaps the greatest experience a man may have, but it is such a rarity as to be almost negligible. — Everett Ruess

I'm drunk on the fiery elixer of beauty. — Everett Ruess

I have seen almost more beauty than I can bear. — Everett Ruess

As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty ...
Even from your scant description, I know that I could not bear the routine and humdrum of the life that you are forced to lead. I don't think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax. — Everett Ruess

I like to be perfectly open and sincere, and yet it is impossible to be sincere to all of one's self at once, so for the deepest understanding one must seek those with whom one can be most truly one's self and never be blind to the ineffable drollery of it all. — Everett Ruess

Always, I want to live more intensely and richly. — Everett Ruess

Say that i starved, that i was lost and weary
that i was burned and blinded by the desert sun
footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases,
lonely and wet and cold, but that i kept my dream! — Everett Ruess

I was sorry, though, that our intimacy, like many things that are and will be, had to die with a dying fall. I do not greatly mind endings, for my life is made up of them, but sometimes they come too soon or too late, and sometimes they leave feeling of regret as of an old mistake or an indirect futility. — Everett Ruess

...while I am alive, I intend to live. — Everett Ruess

I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the street car and the star sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. — Everett Ruess

I'll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is. — Everett Ruess

I must pack my short lifer full of interesting events and creative activity. Philosophy and aesthetic contemplation are not enough. I intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development. Then, and before physical deterioration obtrudes, I shall go on some last wilderness trip to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return. — Everett Ruess

I thought that there were two rules in life - never count the cost, and never do anything unless you can do it wholeheartedly. Now is the time to live. — Everett Ruess

Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness:
Swaggers and softly creeps between the mountain peaks; I shall listen long to the sea's brave music; I shall sing my song above the shriek of desert winds. — Everett Ruess

I have been in many beautiful places, and did not wish to taste, but to drink deep. — Everett Ruess

But then, I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life. — Everett Ruess