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
The mountains are calling and I must go.
Interpretation
The call of nature compels one to explore and experience the outdoors.
This quote by John Muir reflects a deep connection to nature, suggesting that the beauty and grandeur of the mountains evoke a sense of longing and necessity to venture into the wild. It encapsulates the idea that the natural world holds an irresistible pull, calling to those who appreciate its majesty and serenity.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a motivational speech about the importance of spending time outdoors.
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.
All these other creatures have an equal right to exist here. We have no prior rights to the Earth than anybody else, and if they're here, let's give them a chance to survive.
It's the little details I love. How to fletch your arrows with owl feathers, because owls fly silently, so maybe your arrows will, too. How to carry fire in a piece of smouldering fungus wrapped in birchbark. These are the things which help a world come alive.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.
The sweet calm sunshine of October, now_x000D_ _x000D_ Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold_x000D_ _x000D_ The pur0ple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough_x000D_ _x000D_ drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.
The moth settled onto the curtain and sat still. It was an astonishing creature, with black and white wings patterned in geometric shapes, scarlet underwings, and a fat white body with black spots running down it like a snowman's coal buttons. No human eye had looked at this moth before; no one would see its friends. So much detail goes unnoticed in the world.
Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.