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
Similar quotes
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,_x000D_ Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
Alexander PopeRead
Nature tells every secret once.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
The elms of New England! They are as much a part of her beauty as the columns of the Parthenon were the glory of its architecture.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
Nature seems to take advantage of the simple mathematical representations of the symmetry laws. When one pauses to consider the elegance and the beautiful perfection of the mathematical reasoning involved and contrast it with the complex and far-reaching physical consequences, a deep sense of respect for the power of the symmetry laws never fails to develop.
Chen-Ning YangRead
I'll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, The bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, "That must have been the sun!
Emily DickinsonRead
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
Samuel JohnsonRead