When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
John MuirRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Muir highlights the rejuvenating power of nature and the importance of reconnecting with the wilderness.
In this quote, John Muir emphasizes the idea that many people, burdened by the stresses of modern civilization, are rediscovering the healing and restorative qualities of nature. He suggests that true fulfillment and peace come from reconnecting with the wild and that this natural environment is an essential aspect of human existence that many have overlooked in their urbanized lives.
Themes
NatureWildnessRejuvenationMountainsHome
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about work-life balance, one could use this quote to inspire a deeper appreciation for nature.
More from John Muir
All quotes βAs 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
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.
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
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This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. On a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it - a vast pulsing harmony - its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.
Aldo LeopoldRead