John Muir

No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite"

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

"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."

"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."

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

"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. "

"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. "

"The power of imagination makes us infinite. "

Here are some links to good short stories/excerpts from Muir’s writings:

John Muir and the Calypso

A good story about his encounter with a single flower in the middle of a swamp. An excerpt from his first published writing.

A Wind Storm in the Forests

From chapter 10 in"The Mountains of California" An excellent story, told from the top of a tree during a wind storm.