Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity

John Muir
About This Quote

The quote above was written by John Muir in about 1875. Muir believed that the connection between wildness and civilization was not just an intellectual thing. He thought that in order to improve the world, we needed to take ourselves out of the cities and into the mountains. This quote shows how important wildness was to Muir.

He felt that it was something that everyone should experience, because it can make us better people. It brings us back to nature, where we are forced to use our senses, especially our eyes. We are forced to see things in their true form, like the stars in the sky or the clouds in the air.

Source: Our National Parks

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More Quotes By John Muir
  1. On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death.. Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams...
  2. When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
  3. This time it is real – all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!
  4. Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.
  5. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
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