The Mountains of California Quotes

“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 away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California [with Biographical Introduction]

“I drifted on through the midst of this passionate music and motion, across many a glen, from ridge to ridge; often halting in the lee of a rock for shelter, or to gaze and listen. Even when the grand anthem had swelled to its highest pitch, I could distinctly hear the varying tones of individual trees [...] and even the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at my feet. Each was expressing itself in its own way, - singing its own song, and making its own peculiar gestures - manifesting a richness of variety to be found in no other forest I have yet seen.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“But the darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. I”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California [with Biographical Introduction]

“Then, after a long fireside rest and a glance at my note-book, I cut a few leafy branches for a bed, and fell into the clear, death-like sleep of the tired mountaineer. Early”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California [with Biographical Introduction]

“At your feet lies the great Central Valley glowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther than the eye can reach, one smooth, flowery, lake-like bed of fertile soil. Along its eastern margin rises the mighty Sierra, miles in height, reposing like a smooth, cumulous cloud in the sunny sky, and so gloriously colored, and so luminous, it seems to be not colored with light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city. Along the top, and extending a good way down, you see a pale, pearl-gray belt of snow; and before it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension of the forests; and along the base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple and yellow, where lie the miner's goldfields and the foot-hill gardens. All these colored belts blending smoothly make a wall of light ineffably fine, and as beautiful as a rainbow, yet firm as adamant.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“The path of the vanished glacier was warm now, and shone in many places as if washed with silver.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California

“But we little know until tried, how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urging us across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgement forbid as it may.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California