We have nothing to fear and a great deal to learn from trees,
that vigorous and pacific tribe
which without stint produces strengthening essences for us,
soothing balms, and in whose gracious company
we spend so many cool, silent and intimate hours.

-Marcel Proust, Pleasure and Regrets


A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

-Ronald Reagan, Speech, 12 Sept. 1965

Princess (Yosemite)

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

-William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Duet (Emigrant)

Dear friend, all theory is gray,
And green the golden tree of life.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Faust

Exodus (Joshua Tree)

I have been a stranger in a strange land.

-Hebrew Bible, Exodus 2:22

Carnival (Joshua Tree)

Solitude (Death Valley)

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!

-S. T. Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner

Eternity (Big Sur)

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

-William Blake, Eternity

Generations (Whitney)

One generation passeth away,
and another generation cometh;
but the earth abideth for ever.

-Old Testament, Ecclesiastes, I, 4

Parade (Whitney)

Peace (Royal Gorge)

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.

-William Cowper,
Walking with God

Wisdom (King's Canyon)

To know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom; what is more is fume.

-Milton, Paradise Lost, VIII

Eccentricity (King's Canyon)

Thou strange piece of wild nature!

-Colley Cibber, The Lady's Last Stake

Revelation (King's Canyon)

There were giants in the earth in those days.

-Old Testament, Genesis, VI, 4


The clearest way into the Universe
is through a forest wilderness.

-John Muir

Pride (King's Canyon)

Too coy to flatter, and too proud to serve,
Thine be the joyless dignity to starve.

-Tobias Smollett, Advice

Warrior (King's Canyon)

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.

-New Testament, James, II, 20

Pattern (Yosemite)

I do not give you to posterity
as a pattern to imitate,
but as an example to deter.

Letters of Junius,
To the Duke of Grafton.

Embrace (Point Reyes)

All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
How like a younker or a prodigal
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return,
With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!

-William Shakespeare,
The Merchant of Venice

Promise (Sierra)

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

-Luc Marquis De Vauvenagues,
Reflexions et Maximes

Dwarfs (Hope Valley)

Spires (Crater Lake)

To watch the three tall spires;
and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this.

-Alfred Tennyson, Godiva

Curtain (Monterey)

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance.

-William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Devotion (Big Sur)

As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.

-Thomas Moore, The Heart's Prayer

Crest (Yosemite)

I shall be like that tree,--
I shall die at the top.

-Jonathan Swift,
Scott's Life of Swift

Odyssey (Olympic, WA)

And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves.

-Alexander Pope,
The Odyssey of Homer

Ruin (Oregon Coast)

Path (Yosemite)

Give me again my hollow tree, A crust of bread, and liberty. -Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace