John Muir

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. 

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. 

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! 

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

One may as well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.