One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.
—American Indian Proverb
All good things are wild and free.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awakened people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good flammable stuff, it will catch fire.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm.
—Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American Ecologist, Conservationist
Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,
Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,
Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn,
Like babies in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;
Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,
(On earth and in the sea—the universe—the stars there in the heavens.)
Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,
And waiting ever more, forever more behind.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Sequoias, kings of their race, growing close together like grass in a meadow, poised their brave domes and spires in the sky three hundred feet above the ferns and lilies that enameled the ground; towering serene through the long centuries, preaching God’s forestry fresh from heaven
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility. The shallow-minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important.
—Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American Ecologist, Conservationist
To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit.
—Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) American Writer, Critic, Naturalist
When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and the most interminable, and to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter the swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum; there is the strength, the marrow of Nature.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
—Zen Proverb Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism
Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waiting… wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us, but in us. The rivers flow not passed, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, lying on our backs, looking up at stars, and we didn’t even feel like talking aloud.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
No beast has ever conquered the earth; and the natural world has never been conquered by muscular force.
—Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954) American Horticulturist, Botanist
No site in the forest is without significance, not a glade, not a thicket that does not provide analogies to the labyrinth of human thoughts. Who among those people with a cultivated spirit, or whose heart has been wounded, can walk in a forest without the forest speaking to him? … If one searched for the causes of that sensation, at once solemn, simple, gentle, mysterious, that seizes one, perhaps it would be found in the sublime and ingenious spectacle of all the creatures obeying their destinies, immutably docile.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell… I asked the boulders I met, whence they came and whither they were going.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
The creation of the mental domain of phantasm has a complete counterpart in the establishment of “reservations” and “nature-parks.”… The “reservation” is to maintain the old condition of things which has been regretfully sacrificed to necessity everywhere else; there everything make grow and spread as it pleases, including what is it useless and even what is harmful. The mental realm of phantasm is also such a reservation reclaimed from the encroachment of the reality-principle.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
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 (1901–39) American Forester
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown; for going out, I found, was really going in.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
Forestry is the preservation of forests by wise use.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
Across the gulfs and barriers that now divide us, we must remember that there are no permanent enemies. Hostility today is a fact, but it is not a ruling law. The supreme reality of our time is our indivisibility as children of God and our common vulnerability on this planet.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
I think I could turn and live with the animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. Not one is dissatisfied. Not one is demented with the mania of owning things. Not one is disrespectful or unhappy over the world.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward; death and decay return it to the soil. The circuit is not closed; some energy is dissipated in decay, some is added by absorption from the air, some is stored in soils, peats, and long-lived forests; but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life.
—Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American Ecologist, Conservationist
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 (1887–1948) American Ecologist, Conservationist
The art of land doctoring is being practiced with vigor, but the science of land health is yet to be born.
—Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American Ecologist, Conservationist
Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist