Gary Snyder Quotes

Quotes about:

• Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.

  Gary Snyder

  Nature, Home, Earth

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.7, Counterpoint Press

  125 Copy quote

• Doom scenarios, even though they might be true, are not politically or psychologically effective. The first step . . . is to make us love the world rather than to make us fear for the end of the world.

  Gary Snyder

  World, Might, Firsts

  57 Copy quote

• Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.

  Gary Snyder

  Responsibility, Environmental, Blue Planet

  Gary Snyder (1974). “Turtle Island”, p.101, New Directions Publishing

  93 Copy quote

• Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance beween spirit and humility.

  Gary Snyder

  Adventure, Humility, Walking Meditation

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.19, Counterpoint Press

  105 Copy quote

• Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking, brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.

  Gary Snyder

  Gratitude, Play, Simplicity

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.25, Counterpoint Press

  89 Copy quote

• Wildness It is perennially within us, dormant as a hard-shelled seed, awaiting the fire or flood that awakes it again.

  Gary Snyder

  Fire, Dormant, Flood

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.14, Counterpoint Press

  83 Copy quote

• 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

  92 Copy quote

• I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.

  Gary Snyder

  Animal, Soul, Solitude

  65 Copy quote

• The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.

  Gary Snyder

  Home, Planets, Best Things

  19 Copy quote

• True affluence is to not need anything.

  Gary Snyder

  Needs, Affluence

  35 Copy quote

• Range after range of mountains. Year after year after year. I am still in love.

  Gary Snyder

  Years, Mountain, Still In Love

  Gary Snyder, Tom Killion (2005). “The High Sierra of California”, p.112, Heyday

  69 Copy quote

• Nature is orderly. That which appears to be chaotic in nature is only a more complex kind of order.

  Gary Snyder

  Nature, Order, Kind

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.100, Counterpoint Press

  71 Copy quote

• We . . . must try to live without causing unnecessary harm, not just to fellow humans but to all beings. We must try not to be stingy, or to exploit others. There will be enough pain in the world as it is.

  Gary Snyder

  Pain, Trying, World

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.4, Counterpoint Press

  78 Copy quote

• Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.

  Gary Snyder

  Philosophy, People, Trying

  Gary Snyder (1969). “Earth House Hold”, p.38, New Directions Publishing

  47 Copy quote

• You should really know what the complete natural world of your region is and know what all its interactions are and how you are interacting with it yourself. This is just part of the work of becoming who you are, where you are.

  Gary Snyder

  Becoming Who You Are, World, Natural

  Gary Snyder, William Scott McLean (1980). “The Real Work: Interviews & Talks, 1964-1979”, p.16, New Directions Publishing

  74 Copy quote

• After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board

  Gary Snyder

  Nature, Moving, Boards

  Gary Snyder (1971). “The Back Country”, p.25, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• Read carefully, then don't read; work hard, then forget about it; know your tradition, then liberate yourself from it; learn language, then free yourself from it. Finally, know at least one form of magic.

  Gary Snyder

  Hard Work, Magic, Free Yourself

  8 Copy quote

• The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom.

  Gary Snyder

  Journey, Hiking, Lessons

  Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison (2010). “The Etiquette of Freedom: Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison, and the Practice of the Wild”, p.13, Counterpoint Press

  48 Copy quote

• Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses

  Gary Snyder

  Animal, Air, Water

  37 Copy quote

• For several centuries Western civilization has had a drive for material accumulation, continual extensions of economic power, termed 'progress'...The longing for growth is not wrong. The nub of the problem is how to flip over, as in jujitsu, the magnificent growth energy of modern civilization into a nonacquisitive search for deeper knowledge of self and nature.

  Gary Snyder

  Self, Civilization, Growth

  33 Copy quote

• As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

  Gary Snyder

  Ignorance, Animal, Solitude

  21 Copy quote

• When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.

  Gary Snyder

  Yoga, Buddhism, Positivity

  Gary Snyder (1969). “Earth House Hold”, p.10, New Directions Publishing

  66 Copy quote

• The size of the place that one becomes a member of is limited only by the size of one’s heart.

  Gary Snyder

  Heart, Size, Members

  Gary Snyder (2009). “Back on the Fire: Essays”, p.98, Counterpoint

  34 Copy quote

• For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel; it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.

  Gary Snyder

  Moving, Mean, Responsibility

  "High peak haikus". Interview with James Campbell, www.theguardian.com. July 15, 2005.

  17 Copy quote

• Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?

  Gary Snyder

  Consciousness, Should, Standards

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.21, Counterpoint Press

  22 Copy quote

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