Wilderness Quotes

Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question "Why was it made?’ goes on and on, with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself.

John Muir

In God's wildness lies the hope of the world -- the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness.

John Muir

Wilderness is a necessity ... They will see what I meant in time. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ, of course, but the germ will grow.

John Muir

I care to live only to entice people to look at nature's loveliness. My only special self is nothing (I want to be) like a flake of glass through which light passes.

John Muir

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movement of water, or gardening -- still all is Beauty!

JOhn Muir

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

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

Also there was considerable distrust of planning in any form. Planning was something the government was going to do to you. The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion, unfortunately.

Lewis Mumford

[The public lands represent] in a sense, the breathing space of the nation.

Richard M. Nixon†

All living creatures and all plants are a benefits to something.

Okute†

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

The enjoyment of the choicest natural scenes in the country and the means of recreation connected with them is a monopoly...of very few rich people...For the same reason that the water of rivers should be guarded against private appropriation and the use of it for the purpose of navigation and otherwise protected against obstruction, portions of the natural scenery may therefore properly be guarded and cared for by government...The establishment by government of great public grounds is thus justify and enforced as a public duty.

Frederick Law Olmsted

Since the land is the parent, let the citizens take care of her more carefully than children do their mother.

Plato

Since water still flows, though we cut it with swords And sorrow returns, though we drown it with a wine, Since the world can in no way answer to our craving, I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing boat.

Li Po

If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.

Proverbs, Zen Verse