John Wesley Powell Quotes

• We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.

  John Wesley Powell

  Running, Wall, Distance

  John Wesley Powell (2003). “The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons”, p.268, Penguin

  46 Copy quote

• The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.

  John Wesley Powell

  Art, Illustration, Speech

  John Wesley Powell (2008). “Canyons of the Colorado”, p.394, Cosimo, Inc.

  80 Copy quote

• We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore.

  John Wesley Powell

  Running, Distance, Rivers

  John Wesley Powell (2003). “The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons”, p.268, Penguin

  30 Copy quote

• You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.

  John Wesley Powell

  Views, Labyrinth, Toil

  John Wesley Powell (2008). “Canyons of the Colorado”, p.397, Cosimo, Inc.

  41 Copy quote

• The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock - cliffs of rock; plateaus of rock; terraces of rock; crags of rock - ten thousand strangely carved forms.

  John Wesley Powell

  Rocks, Rivers, Landscape

  Smithsonian Institution, John Wesley Powell, Almon Harris Thompson, Elliott Coues, George Brown Goode (1875). “Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries: Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution”, p.55

  31 Copy quote

• The elements that unite to make the Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature are multifarious and exceedingly diverse.

  John Wesley Powell

  Sublime, Elements, Canyons

  John Wesley Powell (2008). “Canyons of the Colorado”, p.394, Cosimo, Inc.

  32 Copy quote

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