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Who really said it

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks

Written by John Muir 1838–1914 · Scottish-American naturalist & “Father of the National Parks”
Verified Free to reuse

This is genuine Muir. The line appears in his essay “Mormon Lilies,” first published in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin on 19 July 1877 and later collected as Chapter 9 of Steep Trails ↗ (1918). Muir’s own sentence opens with a word the popular version drops: “But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks” John Muir, "Mormon Lilies" (1877), collected in Steep Trails (1918) · Verbatim: “But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

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In context

Evoking the world of John Muir — Scottish-American naturalist, writer & conservationist. Theme: "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Author
John Muir (1838–1914)
Work
“Mormon Lilies” (essay)
First published
San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 19 July 1877, p. 4
Collected in
Steep Trails, ch. 9 (Houghton Mifflin, 1918)

But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks. I had not gone more than a mile from Lake Point ere I found the way profusely decked with flowers, mostly compositae and purple leguminosae, a hundred corollas or more to the square yard… From “Mormon Lilies”

The sentence opens the paragraph in which Muir describes climbing from Lake Point on the Great Salt Lake up through miles of wildflowers toward the snow.

Read “Mormon Lilies” in full at the Sierra Club John Muir Exhibit

How we traced it

Public domain

Muir’s essay was first published in 1877 and collected in Steep Trails in 1918; both dates are well before 1931, so the text is in the public domain in the United States.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

A note on the wording

This is one of the rare feel-good nature lines pinned on a famous name that turns out to be genuinely his. The catch is smaller: the popular version quietly trims Muir’s actual sentence.

John Muir (paraphrased) trimmed

Muir wrote “But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks,” with a capital “Nature.” The widely shared version drops the opening “But” and lowercases “nature,” as seen against the primary text ↗.

Often cited only as “Steep Trails” incomplete

Quote sites usually stop at the 1918 book. The sentence is older: it first appeared in Muir’s newspaper essay “Mormon Lilies” in 1877, per the University of the Pacific bibliography ↗.

The attribution to John Muir is correct — the line is his, from “Mormon Lilies” (1877; collected in Steep Trails, 1918 ↗). Just remember his sentence starts with “But.”

Context

Why it resonates

Muir wrote the line not as a standalone aphorism but as the opening of a naturalist’s report. Climbing from the shore of the Great Salt Lake toward the snow line, he found the trail “profusely decked with flowers” — the “far more” he received was a hillside of blooms he had not gone looking for.

That grounding is part of why the quote endures: it distills a lifetime of Muir’s solitary walking into a single promise about paying attention to the wild.

But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Gratitude Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

“Mormon Lilies” (full text)sierraclub.org

The complete essay in the Sierra Club John Muir Exhibit, containing the sentence in its original form.
John Muir Quotesnps.gov

The National Park Service lists the line in its fuller form and credits Steep Trails.
Muir bibliography: “Mormon Lilies”scholarlycommons.pacific.edu

University of the Pacific record of the essay’s original 1877 newspaper publication.
Steep Trails (1918)archive.org

Scanned first edition of the book that collected the essay, for page-level verification.
John Muiren.wikipedia.org

Biography of the naturalist, conservationist, and Sierra Club co-founder.

The true author

About John Muir

John Muir

1838–1914 · Scottish-American naturalist, writer & conservationist

John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist whose books and essays helped launch the modern conservation movement and earned him the nickname the “Father of the National Parks.” He co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and campaigned for the protection of Yosemite and other wild lands. His rapturous prose about mountains, forests, and glaciers — much of it drawn from his own long solitary walks — is the natural home for a line like this one.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

John Muir, “Mormon Lilies,” San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 19 July 1877; collected in Steep Trails, ch. 9 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918).

MLA (9th ed.)

Muir, John. “Mormon Lilies.” Steep Trails, Houghton Mifflin, 1918, ch. 9.

APA (7th ed.)

Muir, J. (1918). Mormon lilies. In Steep Trails (Ch. 9). Houghton Mifflin. (Original work published 1877)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/in-every-walk-with-nature-one-receives-far-more-than-he/

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