Quotes & Sayings About Wilderness John Muir

The most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wilderness. — John Muir

It has always been my understanding that truth and freedom can only exist in wild places. — Daniel J. Rice

So abundant and novel are the objects of interest in a pure wilderness that unless you are pursuing special studies it matters little where you go, or how often to the same place. Wherever you chance to be always seems at the moment of all places the best; and you feel that there can be no happiness in this world or in any other for those who may not be happy there. — John Muir

Inspired by John Muir's A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, John Davis walks, bikes, and kayaks on a 'voyage of recovery' from the Florida Keys to southeastern Canada. He bears witness not only to wilderness that still sustains bears, panthers, and bobcats but also to the possibilities for connecting further wildways in the eastern United States. His inspiring journey reminds us all that we must rediscover the wildness we still have before we lose it forever. — Michael Brune

No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in a way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains as to wilderness, as that which declares that the world was made especially for the uses of men. Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged. — John Muir

It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple in autumn, when the sun gold is richest — John Muir

You know that I have not lagged behind in the work of exploring our grand wilderness, and in calling everybody to come and enjoy the thousand blessings they have to offer. — John Muir

Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky. — John Muir

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. — John Muir

There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties — John Muir

When I was a child in Scotland, I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately, around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness... — John Muir

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. — John Muir

Come to the woods, for here is rest. — John Muir

In this silent, serene wilderness the weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace. — John Muir

Now, wilderness can be seen as a useful fiction, a fiction constructed by John Muir and his heirs and deployed to keep places from being destroyed by resource extraction and wholesale development. — Rebecca Solnit

Wilderness is a necessity ... there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls ... — John Muir

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul — John Muir

If I should be fated to walk no more with Nature, be compelled to leave all I most devoutly love in the wilderness, return to civilization and be twisted into the characterless cable of society, then these sweet, free, cumberless rovings will be as chinks and slits on life's horizon, through which I may obtain glimpses of the treasures that lie in God's wilds beyond my reach. — John Muir

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity — John Muir

Wilderness is a necessity ... They will see what I meant in time. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ, of course, but the germ will grow. — John Muir

Nothing truly wild is unclean. — John Muir

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter. — John Muir

I wish I knew where I was going. Doomed to be carried of the spirit into the wilderness, I suppose. I wish I could be more moderate in my desires, but I cannot, and so there is no rest. — John Muir

To sit in solitude, to think in solitude with only the music of the stream and the cedar to break the flow of silence, there lies the value of wilderness. — John Muir

All wilderness seems to be full of tricks and plans to drive and draw us up into God's light. — John Muir

Wilderness is not only a haven for native plants and animals but it is also a refuge from society. Its a place to go to hear the wind and little else, see the stars and the galaxies, smell the pine trees, feel the cold water, touch the sky and the ground at the same time, listen to coyotes, eat the fresh snow, walk across the desert sands, and realize why its good to go outside of the city and the suburbs. Fortunately, there is wilderness just outside the limits of the cities and the suburbs in most of the United States, especially in the West. — John Muir

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. — John Muir

Strange the faithless fuss made about taking a walk in the safest and pleasantest of all places, a wilderness. — John Muir