High Sierra Topix

We had this thread on the old forums. Sucks that it was lost... Let's try this again!

What is/are your favorite John Muir Quotes? If you have favorite quotes by someone else, feel free to start another thread to share those! I'll get us started:

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life..." - John Muir

Man must labor for beauty as well as for bread.

Hmmm, I can't seem to locate this quote right off hand. Any ideas?

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

"The mountains are calling and I must go"

Leaving in 45 min for Mammoth

I'll admit, I don't know too many Muir quotes.
I came across this one recently...not too insightful, but it really did give me a chuckle (anyone that has had run-ins with bears can attest to )

"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."

Greg - I've got a great book on quotes and excerpts from John Muir's writings - "John Muir, In His Own Words". I am just as impressed with his philosophy and outlook on life as I am with his mountaineering prowess. He is inspiring...

Anyway, I don't think I've got a one-and-only-favorite, but here's a couple:

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest winderness"

"No doubt these trees would make good lumber after passing through a sawmill, as George Washington after passing through the hands of a French cook would have made good food"

"Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal"

Probably the most well-known:

"Climb the mountain and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees. The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves"



P.S. Greg - I still owe you a book... you gave me "Moby Dick" to read at Lake Virginia. I've got an extra copy of John Muir's book if you'd like it. "P.M." me your adddress and I'll send it.

Rosie

Rosie can you check your book and find my quote (...labor for beauty as well as for bread...) so I can figure out which book it's from? I think I have all Muir's works (my favorite is "Boyhood and Youth"), but they're not indexed by quotation and I just can't find that one...

BSquared -

I think it's the following:

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give us strength to body and soul. This natural beauty-hunger is displayed in poor folk's window-gardens made up of a few geranium slips in broken cups, as well as in the costly lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks...Nevertheless, like everything else worth while, however sacred and precious and well-guarded, they have been subject to attack, mostly by despoiled gain-seekers, mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to supervisors, lumbermen, cattlemen, farmers, eagerly trying to make everything dollarable, often thinly disguised in smiling philanthropy, calling pocket-filling plunder "Utilization of beneficient natural resources, that man and beast may be fed and the dear Nation grow great." Thus long ago a lot of enterprising merchants made part of the Jerusalem temple into a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves"

("The Hetch-Hetchy Valley," Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1908, 217; YOS, 256-57. A less adequate version of this appeared two months earlier: "The Tuolomne Yosemite in Danger," The Outlook, November 2, 1907, 488"



The only other reference I could find for bread/beauty was:

"One must labor for beauty as for bread here as elsewhere." ("The Yosemite Valley," Picturesque California, 63; YOS 28.)

Hope this helps
Rosie

Rosabella wrote:BSquared -

The only other reference I could find for bread/beauty was:

"One must labor for beauty as for bread here as elsewhere." ("The Yosemite Valley," Picturesque California, 63; YOS 28.)

That was it! Thanks very much, Rosie. What I remembered as a "complete works" of Muir turns out to be an anthology called "Nature Writings," and it apparently does not contain either quotation. Of course, neither do my copies of "The Yosemite," "My Boyhood and Youth," or "The Mountains of California."

Speaking of Hetch-Hetchy, though, do you have the quotation that compares the flooding of Hetch-Hetchy so it's easier to get to the cliffs with flooding the Sistine Chapel so it's easier to see the ceiling? That's always been one of my favorites, but I don't have the reference...

-B2

Hi again B2!

I'm enjoying this.... I haven't looked in this book for a while, so I'm enjoying reading as I find your quotes

"Those 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.

Dam Hetch-Hetchy! 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"

("the Hetch-Hetchy Valley," Sierra Club Bulletin January 1908, 220; YOS,261-62.)