John Muir is often hailed as the “Father of the National Park System” for his profound influence on environmental conservation. His writings and activism ignited a passion for preserving wilderness areas and inspired generations to appreciate the natural world. Muir’s quotes about nature are renowned for their lyrical beauty, deep spiritual connection, and a fervent call for protection. His words paint vivid pictures of the wilderness, evoking a sense of awe and wonder.

John Muir Quotes Nature

1. “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

2. “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”

3. “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

4. “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

5. “Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”

6. “Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.”

7. “The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us.”

8. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”

9. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

10. “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

11. “The power of imagination makes us infinite.”

12. “Earth has no sorrow that Earth cannot heal.”

13. “Going to the mountains is going home.”

14. “Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.”

15. “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

16. “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

17. “One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.”

18. “The wilderness is a necessity…a fountain of life.”

19. “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity.”

20. “In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.”

21. “The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil.”

22. “In wilderness lies the hope of the world — the great fresh, unlighted, unredeemed wilderness.”

23. “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

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

25. “I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.”

26. “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.”

27. “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away.”

28. “This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.”

29. “The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong.”

30. “Heaven knows that John the Baptist was not more eager to get all his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of God’s mountains.”