“Pollution, defilement, squalor are words that never would have been created had man lived conformably to Nature. Birds, insects, bears die as cleanly and are disposed of as beautifully as flies. The woods are full of dead and dying trees, yet needed for their beauty to complete the beauty of the living.... How beautiful is all Death!”
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.”