Quote

…their eager, childlike attention was refreshing to see as compared with the decent, deathlike apathy of weary civilized people, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and care and poor, shallow comfort.

John Muir

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John Muir
Age: 76 †
Born: 1838
Born: April 21
Died: 1914
Died: December 24
Author
Autobiographer
Botanist
Conservationist
Ecologist
Engineer
Essayist
Explorer
Geologist
Glaciologist
Inventor
Mountaineer
Naturalist
J. Muir
Curiosity
Eager
Comfort
Apathy
Attention
Toil
Poor
Shallow
Natural
Weary
Care
Compared
Quenched
People
Civilized
Refreshing
Decent
Childlike

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Books are but stepping stones to show you where other minds have been.
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We are in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us....How glorious a conversion, so complete and wholesome it is, scarce memory enough of old bondage days left as a standpoint to view it from! In this newness of life we seem to have been so always
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The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
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My meals were easily made, for they were all alike and simple, only a cupful of tea and bread.
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Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.
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I never saw a discontented tree.
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The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.
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Divine love is the sublime boss of the universe.
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There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties
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The tide of visitors will float slowly about the bottom of the valley as harmless scum collecting in hotel and saloon eddies, leaving the rocks and falls eloquent as ever.
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John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.
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Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.
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The grand show is eternal It is always sunrise somewhere
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In the eternal youth of Nature, you may renew your own.
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The bat­tle we have fought, and are still fight­ing for the forests is a part of the eter­nal con­flict between right and wrong, and we can­not expect to see the end of it. …So we must count on watch­ing and striv­ing for these trees, and should always be glad to find any­thing so surely good and noble to strive for.
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The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains - mountain dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature's workshops.
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...therefore all childish fear must be put away.
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I like to walk, touch living Mother Earth—bare feet best, and thrill every step. Used to envy happy reptiles that had advantage of so much body in contact with earth, bosom to bosom. [We] live with our heels as well as head and most of our pleasure comes in that way.
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The power of imagination is infinite.
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Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?
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