Wilderness Quotes - Page 4

• Without wilderness, we will eventually lose the capacity to understand America.


  Harvey Broome

  America, Capacity, Loses

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• My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for forty years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions.

  Elayne Boosler

  Biblical, Men, Years

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• I realized that Eastern thought had somewhat more compassion for all living things. Man was a form of life that in another reincarnation might possibly be a horsefly or a bird of paradise or a deer. So a man of such a faith, looking at animals, might be looking at old friends or ancestors. In the East the wilderness has no evil connotation; it is thought of as an expression of the unity and harmony of the universe.

  William O. Douglas

  Animal, Men, Compassion

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• The richest values of wilderness lie not in the days of Daniel Boone, nor even in the present, but rather in the future.

  Aldo Leopold

  Lying, Values

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• It is imperative to maintain portions of the wilderness untouched so that a tree will rot where it falls, a waterfall will pour its curve without generating electricity, a trumpeter swan may float on uncontaminated water - and moderns may at least see what their ancestors knew in their nerves and blood.

  Bernard DeVoto

  Nature, Fall, Swans

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• Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation's character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us.

  Aldo Leopold

  Character, Yield, Remnants

  Aldo Leopold, David Earl Brown, Neil B. Carmony (1995). “Aldo Leopold's Southwest”, p.161, UNM Press

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• A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.

  Edward Abbey

  Men, Cities, Feet

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

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• We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Rain, Clouds, Sight

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.205, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness.

  Andrew Marvell

  Flower, Garden, Rose

  'The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn' (1681) l. 71

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• Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

  John Muir

  Learning, Air, Water

  John Muir (2015). “STEEP TRAILS: California - Utah - Nevada - Washington - Oregon - The Grand Canyon: Adventure Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Nature Essays and Wilderness Studies from the author of The Yosemite, Our National Parks, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf & Picturesque California”, p.45, e-artnow

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• Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order. In ecology we speak of "wild systems." When an ecosystem is fully functioning, all the members are present at the assembly. To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness. Human beings came out of that wholeness, and to consider the possibility of reactivating membership in the Assembly of All Beings is in no way regressive.

  Gary Snyder

  Journey, Order, Ecosystems

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• Wilderness is an anchor to windward. Knowing it is there, we can also know that we are still a rich nation, tending our resources as we should - not a people in despair searching every last nook and cranny of our land for a board of lumber, a barrel of oil, a blade of grass, or a tank of water.

  Clinton Presba Anderson

  Oil, Knowing, Anchors

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• If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Nature, Future, Love You

  Terry Tempest Williams (2008). “Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert”, p.76, Vintage

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• Britain won its wars on the playing fields of Eton. America developed its mettle at the muddy gaps of the Cumberlands, in the swift rapids of its rivers, on the limitless reaches of its western plains, in the silent vastness of primeval forests, and in the blizzard-ridden passes of the Rockies and Coast ranges.

  Harvey Broome

  War, Rivers, America

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• Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow... the creation of new wilderness in the full sense of the word is impossible.

  Aldo Leopold

  Impossible, Creation, Resources

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.234, Library of America

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• I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

  Edward Abbey

  America, Saving, Conclusion

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.46, RosettaBooks

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• Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

  Rachel Carson

  Inspirational, Time, Nature

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• Going into the woods, you can go as fast or as slow as you want. It's restorative. Even when I was young, the wilderness offered not only adventure but also therapy and peace: a place to be alone with your thoughts.

  Jennifer Pharr Davis

  Adventure, Want, Woods

  "Pharr Davis thrives on trail". Interview with Anna Katherine Clemmons, www.espn.com. July 2, 2013.

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• Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.

  Austin O'Malley

  Art, Wheat Fields, Imagination

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• The grand highway is crowded w/lovers & searchers & leavers so eager to please & forget. Wilderness.

  Jim Morrison

  Lovers, Forget, Searchers

  Jim Morrison (1989). “Wilderness”, Vintage

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• Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

  Juvenal

  Wisdom, Nature, Earth Day

  Juvenal (1940). “Juvenal and Persius”

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• To me, a wilderness is where the flow of wildness is essentially uninterrupted by technology; without wilderness the world is a cage.

  David R. Brower

  Technology, World, Flow

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• I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

  John Muir

  Happiness, Nature, Travel

  John Muir, Edwin Way Teale, Henry Bugbee Kane (2001). “The Wilderness World of John Muir”, p.315, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.

  Wendell Berry

  Challenges, Feelings, Risk

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• Earth and Sky, Woods and Fields, Lakes and Rivers, the Mountain and the Sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

  John Lubbock

  Education, Teacher, Nature

  "The Use of Life" by John Lubbock, (Ch. IV), 1894.

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