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
God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.
Interpretation
Sometimes we must go through tough experiences to learn important life lessons.
This quote by John Muir suggests that the challenges and hardships we face in life can serve as powerful teachers. These trying experiences, while difficult, can lead to personal growth and a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience after personal loss.
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.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
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".
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.
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.
...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.
O Seeker, pain and suffering make one aware of God.
The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
I know a lot of editors who are very bitter about the directors they work with. They feel they could have done a better job, and I say to them, 'Oh really? Why don't you go try - it's not easy.'
Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
You can fool some of the people some of the time -- and that's enough to make a decent living.
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