John Muir

I left the house for a neighborhood walk at 3:57 PM, exactly one hour before sunset. High, thin clouds dimmed the sunlight, making it seem later than it was. At 57° it felt a little cool. Most trees still have a lot of their leaves, and yet plenty of leaves litter the yards and lie in mounds in the gutters. I’d guess half the leaves have fallen; the rest will go quickly.

There is something about walking in the autumn air that makes me think of John Muir. Muir was an engineer, a naturalist, a writer, and a botanist. Among his accomplishments, he founded the Sierra Club. When I returned from my walk, I decided to include in today’s post a few quotes from his writings. So here you go – quotes by John Muir:

“Every time I pull up a wildflower, I find it connected to the Universe.”

"Bears are peaceable people and mind their own business, instead of going about like the devil seeking whom they may devour." OUR NP, pg. 28

"In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear's behavior was better than mine." OUR NP, pg. 174

“I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in 'creation's dawn.' The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day.”

“Most people are on the world, not in it, - have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them - undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.”

“On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death...Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.”
- Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, p.41-42

“One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature -- inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last.”