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About this quote

What does it mean?
Muir wonders who can capture the sound of natural forces like wind and water in human notation.
In plain terms
Nature's sounds are beautiful but impossible to write down.
What can you take from it?
Some natural wonders defy human notation.

Where it applies

  • appreciating natural sounds
  • artistic challenge

Putting it to work

  • recording ambient sounds
  • writing poetry about nature

Questions to consider

  • What natural sounds move you most?
  • Can art truly capture nature?

Another view

Technology can record these sounds now.

More from John Muir

  1. We all travel the milky way together, trees and men... trees are travellers, in the ordinary sense. They make journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true: bu…

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  2. Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings ever by their accents alone.

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  3. Wander a whole summer if you can. Thousands of God's blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. If …

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