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 MuirRead
From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the shared origin of all life, highlighting the equality of all creatures regardless of their perceived value.
John Muir reflects on the origin of humanity and all living beings, reminding us that we all arise from the same fundamental material of the earth. He challenges the notion of superiority among species, emphasizing that every creature, no matter how insignificant it may seem, deserves recognition as a fellow inhabitant of our world—earth-born and mortal, just like humans.
Themes
EarthNatureLifeHumanityCreaturesEquality
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might say, 'As John Muir once stated, we are all earth-born companions, reminding us to respect all living beings.'
More from John Muir
All quotes →When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
John MuirRead
As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".
John MuirRead
The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. The whole continent was a garden, and from the beginning, it seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe.
John MuirRead
...full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity.
John MuirRead
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
John MuirRead
Similar quotes
if a person wishes to achieve peace of mind and happiness then they should acquire faith, but if they want to be a disciple of truth, which can be "frightening and ugly,” then they need to search.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Some countries have good laws, laws which could stem the tide of HIV. The problem is that these laws are flouted. Because stigma gives unofficial license to treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk unlike other citizens.
Shereen El FekiRead
If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.
C. S. LewisRead
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
ArchimedesRead
On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again
Walter Dean MyersRead
Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.
Marshall McluhanRead