I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong.
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.
There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.
In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world-the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.
Rivers flow not past, but through us; tingling, vibrating, exciting every cell and fiber in our bodies, making them sing and glide.
Only spread a fern-frond over a man’s head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.
I must return to the mountains-to Yosemite. I am told that the winter storms there will not be easily borne, but I am bewitched, enchanted, and tomorrow I must start for the great temple to listen to the winter songs and sermons preached and sung only there.
Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.
I have a low opinion of books: they are piles of stones set up to show coming travelers where other minds have been, or at best signal smokes to call attention...
The sun shines not on us but in us.
I am well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the mountains.
Most people are on the world, not in it – having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them – undiffused seporate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but seporate.
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.
Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.
No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening – still all is Beauty!
By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs – now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life...
Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.
Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.
Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.
Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone.