My First Summer in the Sierra Quotes

“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, My First Summer in the Sierra

“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, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Nothing truly wild is unclean.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!”
― John Muir, 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.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Every morning, arising from the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, "Awake, awake, rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. Come! Come!”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Beauty beyond thought everywhere, beneath, above, made and being made forever.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“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, My First Summer in the Sierra

“In our best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church and the mountains altars.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“learn to live like the wild animals,”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“The body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“What can poor mortals say about clouds?While a description of their huge glowing domes and ridges, shadowy gulfs and canyons, and feather-edged ravines is being tried, they vanish, leaving no visible ruins. Nevertheless, these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them. Both alike are built up and die, and in God's calendar difference of duration is nothing. We can only dream about them in wondering, worshiping admiration, happier than we dare tell even to friends who see farthest in sympathy, glad to know that not a crystal or vapor particle of them, hard or sot, is lost; that they sink and vanish only to rise again and again in higher and higher beauty.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Everything in Nature called destruction must be creation-a change from beauty to beauty.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“An eagle soaring above a sheer cliff, where I suppose its nest is, makes another striking show of life, and helps to bring to mind the other people of the so-called solitude—deer in the forest caring for their young; the strong, well-clad, well-fed bears; the lively throng of squirrels; the blessed birds, great and small, stirring and sweetening the groves; and the clouds of happy insects filling the sky with joyous hum as part and parcel of the down-pouring sunshine.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“The deeper the solitude the less the sense of loneliness, and the nearer our friends.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Having escaped restraint, they were, like some people we know of, afraid of their freedom, did not know what to do with it, and seemed glad to get back into the old familiar bondage.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“the lake a perfect mirror reflecting the sky and mountains with their stars and trees and wonderful sculpture, all their grandeur refined and doubled,—a marvelously impressive picture, that seemed to belong more to heaven than earth.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“What can poor mortals say about clouds?”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“It seems supernatural, but only because it is not understood.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue; indeed the body seems one palate, and tingles equally throughout.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“I tied a crust of bread to my belt, and with Carlo set out for the upper slopes of the Pilot Peak Ridge, and had a good day, notwithstanding the care of seeking the silly runaways.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“It seems strange that visitors to Yosemite should be so little influenced by its novel grandeur, as if their eyes were bandanged and their ears stopped. Most of those I saw yesterday were looking down as if wholly unconscious of anything going on about them, while the sublime rocks were trembling with the tones of the mighty changing congregation of waters gathered from all the mountains round about, making music that might draw angels out of heaven ... God himself is preaching his sublimest water and stone sermons!”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“How lavish is Nature building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing, ever beautiful.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“take me into the mountains”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Contemplating the lace-like fabric of streams outspread over the mountains, we are reminded that everything is flowing—going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“Here I could stay tethered forever with just bread and water, nor would I be lonely; loved friends and neighbors, as love for everything increased, would seem all the nearer however many the miles and mountains between us.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in Sierra