“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!”
More from John Muir
“The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang—home-going. So the snow-flowers go home…”
“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at…”
“The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and…”
“Sit down in climbing, and hear the pines sing.”