Bernd Heinrich Quotes

• There is nothing quite so gentle, deep, and irrational as running--and nothing quite so savage, so wild.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Running, Savages, Irrational

  50 Copy quote

• Conditions are seldom ideal, and if one waits long enough for ideal conditions one is just making excuses.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Long, Waiting, Excuse

  Bernd Heinrich (1994). “A Year in the Maine Woods”, Addison-Wesley Longman

  17 Copy quote

• Movement is the essence of life.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Running, Essence, Movement

  Bernd Heinrich (2009). “Why We Run: A Natural History”, p.36, Harper Collins

  15 Copy quote

• We are social animals. We like to feel a part of something of beauty and power that transcends our insignificance. It can be a religion, a political party, a ball club. Why not also Nature? I feel a strong identity with the world of living things. I was born into it; we all were. But we may not feel the ties unless we gain intimacy by seeing, feeling, smelling, touching and studying the natural world. Trying to live in harmony with the dictates of nature is probably as inspirational as living in harmony with the Koran or the Bible. Perhaps it is also a timely undertaking.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Strong, Party, Animal

  Bernd Heinrich, Alice Calaprice (1993). “One Man's Owl”, p.14, Princeton University Press

  9 Copy quote

• Running is perhaps the most fundamental of all sports, and it is economically the least costly to perform. As a consequence, it is the most democratic and most competitive of all sports because individual merit can prevail despite economic equality. It is a sport for everyone, the whole world over.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Sports, Running, Fundamentals

  36 Copy quote

• For those that endure until spring, existence is reduced to its elegant essentials.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Spring, Essentials, Existence

  7 Copy quote

• Edward Abbey said you must brew your own beer; kick in you Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it. I already had a good start. As a teenager in rural Maine, after we came to America, I had learned hunting, fishing, and trapping in the wilderness. My Maine mentors had long ago taught me to make home brew. I owned a rifle, and I'd already built a log cabin. The rest should be easy. I thought I'd give it a shot.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Teenager, Home, Beer

  Bernd Heinrich (1994). “A Year in the Maine Woods”, Addison-Wesley Longman

  9 Copy quote

• Deep down we are all still runners

  Bernd Heinrich

  Runners, Stills, Deep Down

  6 Copy quote

• The essential thing is to run period!
  And to do it for a long time and consistently and then everything will take care of itself.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Running, Long, Essentials

  7 Copy quote

• Barry L. Jacobs and colleagues from the neuroscience program at Princeton University showed that when mice ran every day on an exercise wheel, they developed more brain cells and they learned faster than sedentary controls. I believe in mice.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Believe, Exercise, Princeton University

  12 Copy quote

• I do not yet want to form a hypothesis to test, because as soon as you make a hypothesis, you become prejudiced. Your mind slides into a groove, and once it is in that groove, has difficulty noticing anything outside of it. During this time, my sense must be sharp; that is the main thing - to be sharp, yet open.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Mind, Slides, Want

  "A Year in the Maine Woods". Book by Bernd Heinrich, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• Spraying to kill trees and and raspberry bushes after a clear-cut merely looks unaesthetic for a short time, but tree plantations are deliberate ecodeath. Yet, tree planting is often pictorially advertised on television and in national magazines by focusing on cupped caring hands around a seedling. But forests do not need this godlike interference... Planting tree plantations is permanent deforestation... The extensive planting of just one exotic species removes thousands of native species.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Cutting, Caring, Hands

  14 Copy quote

• The very idea of "managing" a forest in the first place is oxymoronic, because a forest is an ecosystem that is by definition self-managing.

  Bernd Heinrich

  Ideas, Self, Ecosystems

  Bernd Heinrich (1997). “The Trees in My Forest”, Harpercollins

  6 Copy quote

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