Zitate von John Muir

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John Muir

Geburtstag: 21. April 1838
Todesdatum: 24. Dezember 1914

John Muir [ˈmjʊər] war ein schottisch-US-amerikanischer Naturphilosoph und Autodidakt.

Er betätigte sich als Naturalist, Entdecker, Schriftsteller, Erfinder, Ingenieur und Geologe.

John Muir entwickelte sich im Laufe seines Lebens vom Naturforscher mehr und mehr zum Naturschützer und nahm dabei viele der Ideen der heutigen Öko- und Tierrechtsbewegung vorweg. Er war Mitgründer des Sierra Clubs, der ältesten und größten Naturschutzorganisation in den Vereinigten Staaten. Sein offizielles botanisches Autorenkürzel lautet „J.Muir“.

Zitate John Muir

„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. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!“

— John Muir
Context: It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. 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. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! July 1890, page 313 (From Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844) "Essay VI: Nature": "the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.")

„Going to the mountains is going home.“

— John Muir
"In the Sierra Forests", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 3 of the 11 part series "Summering in the Sierra") dated July 1875, published 3 August 1875; reprinted in John Muir: Summering in the Sierra, edited by Robert Engberg (University of Wisconsin Press, 1984) page 79

„God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fool“

— John Muir
Context: Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed — chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. … It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries … God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that. chapter 10: The American Forests

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

— John Muir
"Mormon Lilies", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 4 of the 4 part series "Notes from Utah") dated July 1877, published 19 July 1877; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 9

„There is a love of wild Nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties.“

— John Muir
July 1890, page 315

„Most people are on the world, not in it — have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them — undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.“

— John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
July 1890, page 320

„Everybody needs beauty... places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.“

— John Muir

„Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.“

— John Muir
Muir's marginal note in volume I of Prose Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson (This volume is located at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. See Albert Saijo, "Me, Muir, and Sierra Nevada", in Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California, edited by Peter Berg, San Francisco, California: Planet Drum Foundation, 1978, pages 52-59, at page 55, and Frederick W. Turner, Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours (1985), page 193.)

„The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.“

— John Muir
attributed to Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 331

„When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.“

— John Muir
Variant: Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe. These are paraphrases of Muir's quote from My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) - the actual quote is listed above: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." See Sierra Club explanation http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/misquotes.aspx.

„The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.“

— John Muir
July 1890, page 313

„The mountains are calling and I must go.“

— John Muir
letter to sister Sarah Muir Galloway (3 September 1873); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 10: Yosemite and Beyond

„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; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.“

— John Muir, Our National Parks
chapter 1: The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West

„The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.“

— John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
chapter 6: Cedar Keys, page 160

„The sun shines not on us but in us.“

— John Muir

„I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.“

— John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
page 439 (Last line of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge.)

Zitate von John Muir

John Muir

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