Whether you’re planning your first national park trip or you’ve visited all 423 federally protected national park sites in the United States — you already know how beautiful these landscapes are.
Every year, more than 297 million people visit the National Park System — which is comprised of more than 84 million acres and is generously cared for by more than 279,000 volunteers!
Sometimes words (and even photos) can’t describe the beauty of a hike or adventure through a national park — but it’s always worthwhile to try to capture the experience anyway.
Fortunately, we’ve curated the best quotes about national parks from conservationists, adventurers, presidents, park rangers, and even Leslie Knope. We hope that as you explore these quotes, you feel energized to explore another national park!
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The Best National Park Quotes
Famous Quotes
“There is nothing so American as our national parks… The fundamental idea behind the parks… is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The parks do not belong to one state or to one section… The Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon are national properties in which every citizen has a vested interest; they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona.”
— Stephen Mather, first director of the National Park Service
“National parks and reserves are an integral aspect of intelligent use of natural resources. It is the course of wisdom to set aside an ample portion of our natural resources as national parks and reserves, thus ensuring that future generations may know the majesty of the earth as we know it today.”
— John F. Kennedy
“If you drive to, say, Shenandoah National park, or the Great Smoky Mountains, you’ll get some appreciation for the scale and beauty of the outdoors. When you walk into it, then you see it in a completely different way. You discover it in a much slower, more majestic sort of way.”
— Bill Bryson
“I encourage everybody to hop on Google and type in ‘national park’ in whatever state they live in and see the beauty that lies in their own backyard. It’s that simple.”
— Jordan Fisher
“That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.”
— Wallace Stegner
“It is good to realize that, if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.”
— Jimmy Carter
“I need to be outside. I need to be in the world and to remember that I am of it.”
— John Green
→ Read more quotes about nature
Inspiring Quotes About National Parks
“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through it.”
— Lyndon B. Johnson
"Who will gainsay that the parks contain the highest potentialities of national pride, national contentment, and national health? A visit inspires love of country; begets contentment; engenders pride of possession; contains the antidote for national restlessness.... He is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here who has toured the national parks."
— Stephen Mather, first director of the National Park Service
“Within National Parks is room — glorious room — room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve.”
— Enos Mills
On the Beauty of National Parks
“A national park is not a playground. it’s a sanctuary for nature and for humans who will accept nature on nature’s own terms.”
— Michael Frome
“When I was about fifteen, I went to work at Yosemite National Park. It changed me forever. Nature had carved its own sculpture, and I was part of it, not the other way around.”
— Robert Redford
“The scenic ideals that surround even our national parks are carriers of a nostalgia for heavenly bliss and eternal calmness.”
— Robert Smithson
“Our national parks belong to each of us, and they are natural places to learn, exercise, volunteer, spend time with family and friends and enjoy the magnificent beauty of our great land.”
— George W. Bush
“Stepping out onto any lookout, you are invited to connect with an amazing example of some of the most unusual terrain on this planet, making you feel as though you are stepping foot on the edge of another world.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip
“In a world that is becoming increasingly virtual, the parks remain places of visceral beauty. Places where we can remember that we are but a small part of the life on this planet, and that it is a truly wonderful planet and the only one we've got.”
― Nevada Barr
On the Wilderness
“Without wilderness, we will eventually lose the capacity to understand America. Our drive, our ruggedness, our unquenchable optimism and zeal and elan go back to the challenges of the untrammeled wilderness.”
— Harvey Broome
“In wilderness is the preservation of the world.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“If the national park is, as Lord Bryce suggested, the best idea America has ever had, wilderness preservation is the highest refinement of that idea.”
— Wallace Stegner
“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.”
― Aldo Leopold
“Wilderness is a necessity… there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls”
— John Muir
By Ken Burns
“The National Parks are the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape.”
— Ken Burns, in an interview with Farmers Almanac
“The parks attract us in a deeply spiritual way; they are a place where so many of us have had a transformative moment; where we had our sense of place in the universe confirmed, or at least we were awakened to.”
— Ken Burns, in an interview with Farmers Almanac
“I think we’re at a moment when reminding people of the treasures that we own in common, particularly in an economic crisis, where it might be pleasing to realize how rich we actually are; that you and I own some of the most spectacular ocean-front property; that you and I own, together, some of the most amazing mountain ranges; the highest free-falling waterfalls on the continent; the most spectacular collection of geothermal features on Earth; and the grandest canyon in the world — that we own these together.”
— Ken Burns, in an interview with Farmers Almanac
“The original impulse for the national parks I think is spiritual. The next impulse is conservation, the next is patriotic, the next one is sort of economic development. It’s only recently that we’ve begun to add the complex ecological and environmental motivations that are part of our conversation today.”
— Ken Burns, in an interview with National Parks Traveler
“In particularly tough times, we fall back on these questions of who we are, where do we come from. The national parks are our best idea and therefore, are the places where we can find the answers to those questions.”
— Ken Burns, in an interview with Frommer’s
“It's essential to the survival of the country that people use and exercise their parks. Like anything that doesn't get exercise, it has a tendency to atrophy. We want people to go out and see their property. You own the grandest canyon in the world. All you have to is go out and visit it.”
— Ken Burns, in an interview with Frommer’s
By Theodore Roosevelt
“There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
“The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
“There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
By Leslie Knope
“There are very few things I have asked for in this world. To build a new park from scratch, to eventually become president, and to one day solve a murder on a train.”
— Leslie Knope
“It is my dream to build a park… that I one day visit with my White House staff on my birthday. And they say President Knope, this park is awesome.”
— Leslie Knope
“I love parks. I don't know if that's something I've communicated before.”
— Leslie Knope
“I always carry emergency s'more rations in my car.”
— Leslie Knope
“No one achieves anything alone.”
— Leslie Knope
By Interior Secretary Deb Haaland
“Everyone should have access to the outdoors no matter where they live, how much money they have, or what their background is.”
— Deb Haaland, in the swearing-in ceremony of National Park Service Director “Chuck” Sams III
“The National Park System is huge — not only does it include the beautiful outdoor spaces that everyone knows and loves, but also sites that tell the story of our country.”
— Deb Haaland, in an interview with the U.S. Department of the Interior
“National parks are for everyone and they’re everywhere — even in urban areas. We all have a right to visit and enjoy them.”
— Deb Haaland, in an interview with the U.S. Department of the Interior
“We all should respect our public lands, so when you’re enjoying national parks be sure whatever you bring with you also goes back out with you. Nothing says you care more than leaving a place better than you found it.”
— Deb Haaland, in an interview with the U.S. Department of the Interior
By “Chuck” Sams III
“Just looking at that huge canyon [I recognize] the grandeur and the beauty and how small we are, what a great, immense responsibility we have as American Indians to be stewards of our resources.”
— “Chuck” Sams III, first Native American director of the National Park Service, in an interview with OPB
![“Just looking at that huge canyon [I recognize] the grandeur and the beauty and how small we are, what a great, immense responsibility we have as American Indians to be stewards of our resources.” — “Chuck” Sams III, first Native American director of the National Park Service, in an interview with OPB](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f6cc9cd16d59d990c8fca33/634475c787e280367e4fd90b_national-park-chuck-sams-iii-1.jpg)
“We will continue to fulfill our responsibilities of making sure that the landscape is not only protected, preserved, but also enhanced in the way that will be here for future folks to be able to enjoy and recreate in.”
— “Chuck” Sams III, first Native American director of the National Park Service, in an interview with OPB
“We want to continue to ensure that there's a broader education so that there's a greater reflection of every American within the national park system.”
— “Chuck” Sams III, first Native American director of the National Park Service, in an interview with USA TODAY
By Betty Reid Soskin
“As a woman of color, my history with the park is a bit different. My experience was not as a Rosie the Riveter; that tended to be a white woman’s story. Black women had been working outside their homes ever since slavery.”
— Betty Reid Soskin, oldest National Park Ranger in the United States
“Being a primary source in the sharing of that history — my history — and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling. It has proven to bring meaning to my final years.”
— Betty Reid Soskin, oldest National Park Ranger in the United States
By Barack Obama
“The generation of our kids are more mindful of how we haven’t always taken care of the planet, and with climate change affecting everything, they are demanding action. Nature is more resilient than we think, if we are intentional about it.”
— Barack Obama, in an interview with TODAY
“One of the great things about national parks is they belong to everybody.”
— Barack Obama, in an interview with TODAY
“I’m hoping that by us reminding ourselves of how precious these resources are that we’re going to learn something, not just about how to maintain national parks, but why it’s so important to deal with issues like climate change that threaten the entire planet.”
— Barack Obama, in an interview with TODAY
“It’s not just the iconic mountains and parks that we protect. It’s the forests where generations of families have hiked and picnicked and connected with nature.”
— Barack Obama
“Wild spaces are where we can connect with ourselves, our families, and something greater than us”
— Barack Obama, in a video
“When it comes to a natural marvel like Yosemite or Grand Canyon, that tells everybody’s story, the story of humanity exploring and seeing and being amazed.”
— Barack Obama, in an interview with National Geographic
→ Explore more quotes from Barack Obama
By Joe Biden
“America’s national parks are irreplaceable treasures. They amaze us, inspire us, fill us with pride, and belong to all of us in equal measure.”
— Joe Biden
“Protection of public lands must not become a pendulum that swings back and forth depending on who’s in office. It’s not a partisan issue.”
— Joe Biden
“National monuments and parks are part of our identity as a people. They are more than natural wonders; they’re the birthright we pass from generation to generation — a birthright of every American.”
— Joe Biden, in a speech on Restoring Protections for National Monuments
By John Muir
John Muir played a significant role in conservation efforts in Yosemite Valley and in protecting Sequoia National Park. While his iconic quotes have become ubiquitous in the world of national parks, more attention has recently been given to some of his other words, namely his racist remarks and views. In recent years, the organization Muir founded, The Sierra Club, has condemned him for the racist comments he made about Black and Indigenous people.
If you're currently researching quotes about trees and the outdoors, we encourage you to think twice about using John Muir quotes — or consider also including quotes from Black and Indigenous environmentalists. (You can find more in our roundups of Earth Day quotes and tree quotes.) The outdoors has no place for racism and xenophobia — and we all have a role to play, as intersectional environmentalists, to care for all people as we celebrate nature.
“Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”
— John Muir
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”
— John Muir
“There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties”
— John Muir
“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. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little window-sill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks — the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc. — Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world.”
— John Muir
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
— John Muir
On Specific National Parks
Grand Canyon
“There will never be a photograph of the Grand Canyon that can adequately describe its depth, breadth, and true beauty.”
— Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip
“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself.”
— John Wesley Powell
“The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon - forms unrivaled even by the mountains, colors that vie with sunsets, and sounds that span the diapason from tempest to tinkling raindrop, from cataract to bubbling fountain.”
— John Wesley Powell
“I can still remember my first experience of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking into it. It was so awesome, it took a fair amount of restraint to prevent me from jumping into it, because I was certain I could fly.”
— Mark Goulston
“I don’t believe that anyone can see the Grand Canyon area for themselves and not know that we have to do everything we can to protect it for future generations.”
— Nolan Gould
“It’s like trying to describe what you feel when you’re standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon or remembering your first love or the birth of your child. You have to be there to really know what it’s like.”
— Harrison Schmitt
Yosemite National Park
“When I was about fifteen, I went to work at Yosemite National Park. It changed me forever. Nature had carved its own sculpture, and I was part of it, not the other way around.”
— Robert Redford
“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite.”
— Ansel Adams
“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.”
— Ansel Adams
“Yosemite Park is a place of rest… None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree”
— John Muir
“But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life...as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures.”
— John Muir
Arches National Park
“Mother Nature is a master sculptor and in no place is that more evident than at Arches National Park.”
— Stefanie Payne
“Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhumane spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me. I want to know it all, posess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally...”
— Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Yellowstone
“Yellowstone, of all the national parks, is the wildest and most universal in its appeal... Daily new, always strange, ever full of change, it is Nature's wonder park. It is the most human and the most popular of all parks.”
— Susan Sessions Rugh, Are We There Yet?: The Golden Age of American Family Vacations
“You can hike into the Yellowstone backcountry. You can camp in the Yellowstone backcountry. You can take food into the Yellowstone backcountry, and you're surrounded by grizzly bears. And it's - it's a very, very thrilling, peculiar situation. Every sound that you hear in the night, you wonder is this a grizzly bear coming to tear into my tent?”
— David Quammen
On the National Park Service
“The primary duty of the National Park Service is to protect the national parks and national monuments under its jurisdiction and keep them as nearly in their natural state as this can be done in view of the fact that access to them must be provided in order that they may be used and enjoyed. All other activities of the bureau must be secondary (but not incidental) to this fundamental function relating to care and protection of all areas subject to its control.”
— Stephen Mather, first director of the National Park Service
“The National Park Service today exemplifies one of the highest traditions of public service.”
— Stewart Udall
“The American way of life consists of something that goes greatly beyond the mere obtaining of the necessities of existence. If it means anything, it means that America presents to its citizens an opportunity to grow mentally and spiritually, as well as physically. The National Park System and the work of the National Park Service constitute one of the Federal Government's important contributions to that opportunity. Together they make it possible for all Americans — millions of them at first-hand — to enjoy unspoiled the great scenic places of the Nation... The National Park System also provides, through areas that are significant in history and prehistory, a physical as well as spiritual linking of present-day Americans with the past of their country.”
— Newton B. Drury
“The establishment of the National Park Service is justified by considerations of good administration, of the value of natural beauty as a National asset, and of the effectiveness of outdoor life and recreation in the production of good citizenship.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
More Quotes About National Parks
“The level of comfort and peace that I experience in the parks flows like a stream throughout my life, so that no matter where I am or what I am experiencing, there is a core of me that cannot be disturbed. It keeps me in balance all the time.”
— Audrey Peterman
“One of the beautiful things about the US National Parks is that they created specifically for the enjoyment of all people — in the beginning, now, and for the future.”
— Stefanie Payne, The National Parks Journal: Plan Record Your Trips to the US National Parks
“The idea of preserving in a national grouping such spots of scenic beauty and historic memory originated here in this country. In Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, other countries have followed our pioneering example and set aside their most magnificent scenic areas as national treasures for the enjoyment of present and future generations.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The national park idea has been nurtured by each succeeding generation of Americans. Today, across our land, the National Park System represents America at its best. Each park contributes to a deeper understanding of the history of the United States and our way of life; of the natural processes which have given form to our land, and to the enrichment of the environment in which we live.”
— George B. Hartzog, Jr.
“We never fell ill, not once during one year in the U.S. national parks — perhaps proof of the therapeutic properties of our natural world.”
— Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks
