Nature Quotes for Cards: John Muir, Mountain and Park Quotes

Nature quotes are a simple way to give a card a little more meaning, especially when the person you are writing to loves the mountains, the woods or a favorite national park. This guide collects nature quotes from John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Theodore Roosevelt and other classic writers, along with mountain, hiking and tree quotes, national park quotes and original card messages you can use as written.

Every quote below was checked against the original book, letter or speech, and each one lists its author and source. Popular "John Muir quotes" that turn out to be paraphrases have been left out.

Article contents

• How to Use a Nature Quote in a Card
• Short Nature Quotes
• John Muir Quotes
• Thoreau and Emerson Quotes About Nature
• Mountain, Hiking and Camping Quotes
• Forest and Tree Quotes
• National Park Quotes
• Nature Quotes for Thank You, Birthday and Sympathy Cards
• Original Nature Messages for Cards
• Frequently Asked Questions

How to Use a Nature Quote in a Card

1. Choose a quote that fits the person. A John Muir line suits a hiker or a national park fan, a Thoreau or Emerson quote suits a reader, and a short quote works best on a small note card.
2. Write the quote at the top of the card. Put it in quotation marks and add the author's name after it. You do not need to include the book title.
3. Connect it to your own words. Add one or two sentences that say why the quote made you think of them, such as a trip you took together or a place they love.
4. Close warmly and sign your name. "Happy trails," "With love" or "See you on the trail" all read well after a nature quote.

Example: "Going to the mountains is going home." (John Muir) Happy retirement, Dad. We cannot wait to hear about your first trip to Yellowstone. Love, Anna and Chris

Short Nature Quotes

These short nature quotes fit easily on a small card, a gift tag or the front of a note card.

• "Going to the mountains is going home." (John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901)
• "In Wildness is the preservation of the World." (Henry David Thoreau, Walking, 1862)
• "We need the tonic of wildness." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)
• "In the woods, is perpetual youth." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)
• "Let Nature be your teacher." (William Wordsworth, The Tables Turned, 1798)
• "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)

John Muir Quotes

John Muir was a naturalist and writer who spent years in the Sierra Nevada and helped lead the effort to protect Yosemite. His books are full of lines that work well in a card for anyone who loves the outdoors.

• "The mountains are calling and I must go." (John Muir, letter to his sister Sarah Muir Galloway, 1873)
• "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 off like autumn leaves." (John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901)
• "In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks." (John Muir, Steep Trails, 1918)
• "We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us." (John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911)
• "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." (John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911)
• "Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God's wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted." (John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901)
• "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." (John Muir, The Yosemite, 1912)

Thoreau and Emerson Quotes About Nature

Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were neighbors in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau built his cabin at Walden Pond on land Emerson owned, and both men wrote about the woods in ways that still read well in a card.

• "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)
• "A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)
• "In the woods, we return to reason and faith." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)
• "To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)
• "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)

Mountain, Hiking and Camping Quotes

These mountain, hiking and camping quotes suit a card for a trail partner or a friend planning a camping trip.

• "The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men. Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home." (John Muir, Steep Trails, 1918)
• "Great things are done when men and mountains meet; / This is not done by jostling in the street." (William Blake, from his notebook, about 1808)
• "Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, / Healthy, free, the world before me, / The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose." (Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road)
• "Lifelong friendships have commenced on the trail, and many a lovely romance, too." (Enos Mills, The Rocky Mountain Wonderland, 1915)
• "I wish that every one might have a night by a camp-fire at Mother Nature's hearth-stone." (Enos Mills, Your National Parks, 1917)
• "We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home." (Nessmuk, Woodcraft, 1884)

Forest and Tree Quotes

Quotes about trees and forests work well in a housewarming card, a card for a gardener or a note to someone who spends their weekends in the woods.

• "This is the forest primeval." (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, 1847)
• "We all travel the milky way together, trees and men." (John Muir, The Mountains of California, 1894)
• "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way." (William Blake, letter to Rev. Dr. Trusler, 1799)
• "How happily trees have mingled with our lives!" (Enos Mills, Your National Parks, 1917)
• "To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour." (William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, about 1803)

National Park Quotes

These national park quotes come from the people who helped create and protect the parks. They are a good fit for a card sent from a park visit or a gift for someone working through the national parks checklist.

• "Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it." (Theodore Roosevelt, speech at the Grand Canyon, May 6, 1903)
• "There is nothing more practical in the end than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions in mankind." (Theodore Roosevelt, speech at the Big Tree Grove, Santa Cruz, California, May 11, 1903)
• "There is nothing so American as our national parks." (Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address from Glacier National Park, August 5, 1934)
• "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people." (Yellowstone National Park Act, 1872)
• "A National Park is a fountain of life." (Enos Mills, Your National Parks, 1917)

The words from the Yellowstone Act of 1872 are also carved over the Roosevelt Arch at the park's north entrance, where Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1903. Enos Mills, quoted above, led the campaign to create Rocky Mountain National Park.

Nature Quotes for Thank You, Birthday and Sympathy Cards

Each message below pairs a nature quote with a sentence of your own that you can keep or change.

Thank You Messages With a Nature Quote

• "In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks." (John Muir) Thank you for the walk, the long talk and the coffee afterward. I came home with far more than I went looking for.
• "Nature, like our best friends, will have us do our best." (Enos Mills) Thank you for pushing me up that last mile. I am so glad you did.
• "Let Nature be your teacher." (William Wordsworth) Thank you for every nature walk, bird list and leaf rubbing this year. Our kids will remember your class for a long time.
• "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread." (John Muir) Thank you for the flowers from your garden. They have brightened our kitchen all week.

Birthday and Retirement Wishes With a Nature Quote

• "In the woods, is perpetual youth." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Happy birthday. I hope you spend a good part of this year outside.
• "The mountains are calling and I must go." (John Muir) Happy birthday! I hope this is the year you finally make it to Glacier.
• "Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road." (Walt Whitman) Happy birthday to my favorite hiking partner. Here is to another year of trails together.
• "Wander here a whole summer, if you can." (John Muir) Happy retirement! You have earned every slow morning and every long trail ahead of you.

Sympathy Messages With a Nature Quote

• "Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her." (William Wordsworth) Your mother loved her garden and her morning walks, and I will think of her every spring when the lilacs bloom.
• "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees." (John Muir) Your dad was happiest on a mountain trail. I hope you can find some of that peace in the weeks ahead.
• "To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower." (William Blake) She noticed the small things, like the first robin and the frost on the windows, and she taught all of us to notice them too.
• "In the woods, we return to reason and faith." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) I hope a quiet walk in the woods can give you a little rest. We are holding you close.

Original Nature Messages for Cards

These messages have no author to credit, so you can copy them as they are or change a word or two to fit.

• Writing to you from a picnic table with a view you would love. Wish you were here.
• We hiked to the falls today and thought of you the whole way up.
• The stars out here are bright enough to read by. Sending you a little bit of this place.
• Thank you for teaching me to love the outdoors. I think of you on every trail.
• Happy birthday to someone who would rather be outside. I hope your day includes a trail and a good view.
• Happy anniversary. Every trail has been better with you beside me.
• Congratulations on your retirement! Now you finally have time to see all the parks.
• Congratulations, graduate. I hope the next few years bring you plenty of open roads and wide views.
• Welcome to your new home. I hope the trees in your yard give you shade, birdsong and many quiet mornings.
• With deepest sympathy. I hope you find some comfort in the places he loved most.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who said "The mountains are calling and I must go"?

John Muir wrote it in a letter to his sister Sarah Muir Galloway in September 1873. The full sentence goes on, "and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly," and the letter was later published in The Life and Letters of John Muir.

Is "And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul" a John Muir quote?

No. The Sierra Club's John Muir Exhibit lists it as a misquote, and it does not appear in Muir's books or journals. The same is true of "Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt."

What is a good short nature quote for a card?

"Going to the mountains is going home" by John Muir and "In the woods, is perpetual youth" by Ralph Waldo Emerson are both short and easy to fit on a small card. "Let Nature be your teacher" by William Wordsworth works well in a card for a teacher or a new graduate.

What did Theodore Roosevelt say about the Grand Canyon?

In a speech at the Grand Canyon on May 6, 1903, Roosevelt said, "Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it." He went on to ask Americans to keep it "for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you."

Our Vintage National Park, Natural Wonders and American Wilderness sets each show 12 different parks and are blank inside, so there is room for a quote and your own note. For a nature lover who enjoys birds, our Birds of America cards show a bird with its name on the front. You can see all of our national park cards or keep track of your visits with our national parks checklist.

More quotes for cards: ocean and beach quotes, flower and butterfly quotes, gratitude quotes, dog quotes and cat quotes.