Inspirational Quotes by Bob Marshall (American Forester)

Robert Marshall (1901–39) was an American forester and wilderness activist. He is best remembered as the person who spearheaded the 1935 founding of the Wilderness Society in the U.S.

Born to Jewish immigrants in New York City, Marshall developed a love for the outdoors as a young child. An avid hiker and climber, he visited the Adirondack Mountains frequently during his youth. He got a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry from Syracuse University, a Master’s degree in forestry from Harvard University, and a PhD in plant physiology from Johns Hopkins.

Marshall started his outdoor career in 1925 as a forester with the U.S. Forest Service. He used his financial independence for expeditions to Alaska and other wilderness areas. He was chief of forestry in the Bureau of Indian Affairs 1933–37 and head of recreation management in the Forest Service 1937–39.

In 1935, Marshall and other conversationalists founded The Wilderness Society. Marshall personally provided most of the Society’s funding in its initial years. He also supported socialism and civil liberties throughout his life. Marshall died of heart failure at the age of 38.

The Wilderness Society helped gain passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, protecting some nine million acres of wilderness land.

Marshall’s books include Arctic Village (1933,) The People’s Forests (1933,) and Alaska Wilderness: Exploring the Central Brooks Range (1970.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Bob Marshall

There is just one hope for repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every inch on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom and preservation of the wilderness.
—Bob Marshall
Topics: Wilderness

As society becomes more and more mechanized, it will be more and more difficult for many people to stand the nervous strain, the high pressure, and the drabness of their lives. To escape these abominations, constantly growing numbers will seek the primitive for the fines features of life.
—Bob Marshall
Topics: Wilderness

Although huge sums of money are involved in any basis of calculation, the most important values of forest recreation are not susceptible of measurement in monetary terms. They are concerned with such intangible considerations as inspiration, aesthetic enjoyment, and a gain in understanding.
—Bob Marshall
Topics: Wilderness

Many of our greatest American thinkers, men of the caliber of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain, William James, and John Muir, have found the forest and effective stimulus to original thought.
—Bob Marshall
Topics: Wilderness

For me and for thousands with similar inclinations, the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefined panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.
—Bob Marshall
Topics: Wilderness

Finally, there are those whose chief purpose in visiting the forests is simply an escape from civilization. These people want to rest from the endless chain of mechanization and artificiality which bounds their lives. In the forest they temporarily abandon a routine to which they cannot become wholly reconciled, and return to that nature in which hundreds of generations of their ancestors were reared.
—Bob Marshall
Topics: Wilderness

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Inspirational Quotes by Bob Marshall (American Forester)

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