The most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wilderness.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.

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

One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of creation; that mountains long conceived are now being born, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes.

Long, blue, spiky-edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.

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