John Muir
John Muir (1838 – 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States. One of the best-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier.
In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. He is today referred to as the "Father of the National Parks" and the National Park Service has produced a short documentary about his life.
Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity," both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. "Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world," writes Holmes. Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name "almost ubiquitous" in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth".
Muir was extremely fond of Henry David Thoreau and was probably influenced more by him than even Ralph Waldo Emerson. Muir often referred to himself as a "disciple" of Thoreau. He was also heavily influenced by fellow naturalist John Burroughs.
During his lifetime John Muir published over 300 articles and 12 books. He co-founded the Sierra Club, which helped establish a number of national parks after he died and today has over 1.3 million members. Author Gretel Ehrlich states that as a "dreamer and activist, his eloquent words changed the way Americans saw their mountains, forests, seashores, and deserts." He not only led the efforts to protect forest areas and have some designated as national parks, but his writings gave readers a conception of the relationship between "human culture and wild nature as one of humility and respect for all life," writes author Thurman Wilkins.
His philosophy exalted wild nature over human culture and civilization. Turner describes him as "a man who in his singular way rediscovered America. . . . an American pioneer, an American hero." Wilkins adds that a primary aim of Muir’s nature philosophy was to challenge mankind’s "enormous conceit," and in so doing, he moved beyond the Transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau to a "biocentric perspective on the world."
In the months after his death, many who knew Muir closely wrote about his influences.
“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
“There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.”
“...every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality.”
“I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.”
“We were glad, however, to get within reach of information…”
“...therefore all childish fear must be put away.”
“…their eager, childlike attention was refreshing to see as compared with the decent, deathlike apathy of weary civilized people, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and care and poor, shallow comfort.”
“Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.”
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
“We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men.”
“One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.”
“Never while anything is left of me shall this... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike.”
“The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”
“There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties”
“Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.”
“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”
“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
“John Muir, Earth — planet, Universe[Muir's home address, as inscribed on the inside front cover of his first field journal]”
“Not blind opposition to progress,but opposition to blind progress...”
“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
“Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant.”
“It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest.”
“So also there are tides and floods in the affairs of men, which in some are slight and may be kept within bounds, but in others they overmaster everything.”
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
“One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else.”
“How narrow we selfish conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!”
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
“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.”
“The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”