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. John Muir
The gross heathenism of civilisation has generally destroyed Nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual. John Muir
Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail. John Muir
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread. Places to play in and pray in. When Nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty hunger is made manifest in our beautiful national parks. Nature’s sublime wonderlands. John Muir
I will follow my instincts. Be myself for good or ill. And see what will be the upshot. As long as I live I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, and storm and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild pathdoms, and get as near to the heart of the world as I can. John Muir
These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the god of the mountains, lift them to the almighty dollar. John Muir
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. John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911
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. John Muir
The long slow pulse-beats of Nature. John Muir
Ordinarily, the man who loves the woods and mountains, the trees, the flowers, and the wild things, has in him some indefinable quality of charm, which appeals even to those sons of civilization who care for little outside of paved streets and brick walls. John Muir was a fine illustration of this rule. He was by birth a Scotchman – a tall and spare man, with the poise and ease natural to him who has lived much alone under conditions of labor and hazard. He was a dauntless soul, and also one brimming over with friendliness and kindliness.
He was emphatically a good citizen. Not only are his books delightful, not only is he the author to whom all men turn when they think of the Sierras and northern glaciers, and the giant trees of the California slope, but he was also – what few nature lovers are – a man able to influence contemporary thought and action on the subjects to which he had devoted his life. He was a great factor in influencing the thought of California and the thought of the entire country so as to secure the preservation of those great natural phenomena – wonderful canyons, giant trees, slopes of flower-spangled hillsides – which make California a veritable Garden of the Lord. Theodore Roosevelt, ‘John Muir: An Appreciation’ Outlook vol 109 16 January 1915
John Muir talked even better than he wrote. His greatest influence was always upon those who were brought into personal contact with him. But he wrote well, and while his books have not the peculiar charm that a very, very few other writers on similar subjects have had, they will nevertheless last long. Our generation owes much to John Muir. ibid.
Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance. Theodore Roosevelt
The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books. Theodore Roosevelt
While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life. Theodore Roosevelt
It is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird. Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals – not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at last it looks as if our people were awakening. Theodore Roosevelt
And to lose the chance to see frigate birds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach – why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time. Theodore Roosevelt
Don’t you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up? D H Lawrence, Women in Love 1920
The world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... A single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related. Plato
We live on a world of wonders: a place of astonishing beauty and complexity. We have vast oceans. Incredible weather. Giant mountains and spectacular landscapes. Brian Cox, Wonders of the Solar System: Dead or Alive, BBC 2010
The natural world is beautiful but complex. The sky is dense with colour. Shapes form and disappear. But this seemingly infinite complexity is just a shadow of something deeper – the underlying laws of Nature. The world is beautiful to look at but it’s even more beautiful to understand. Forces of Nature with Brian Cox I: The Universe in a Snowflake, BBC 2016
Those laws themselves are beautiful and universal. ibid.
All animals with brains are bilaterally symmetrical. ibid.
And yet it feels as if we’re standing still. This appears to be such a simple observation. But the study of motion lies at the very foundation of modern physics, and leads to the astonishing conclusion that the division of time into past, present and future is an illusion. Our intuition is wrong. Forces of Nature with Brian Cox II: Somewhere in Spacetime
You can’t perceive that you’re moving if you’re travelling in a straight line at a constant speed. ibid.
By looking carefully at nature, by doing science, we might be able to understand what life is and perhaps how it began. The origin of life is one of the great unsolved mysteries. Forces of Nature with Brian Cox III: The Moth and the Flame
What are the ingredients of life? How does complex life form from such simple ingredients? And what was the driving force, the energy source, that ignited the flame four billion years ago? ibid.
We’re made of the same stuff as our planet. ibid.
Light is our window on the universe … We can explore worlds beyond our solar system. Forces of Nature with Brian Cox IV: The Pale Blue Dot
The moonbow isn’t just beautiful, it’s physics. ibid.
Scenery is fine – but human nature is finer. John Keats
Who, of men, can tell
That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell
To melting pump, that fish would have bright mail,
The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale,
The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,
The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,
Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet,
If human souls did never kiss and greet? John Keats, Endymion, 1818
Their smiles,
Wan as primroses gathered at midnight
By chilly fingered spring. ibid.
St Ages’ Eve – Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold. John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, 1820
Trembling in her soft and chilly nest. ibid.
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—
Nature’s observatory — whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. John Keats, To Solitude