Conservation arises from the perennial human desire to dwell in harmony with our neighbors—those that creep and fly, those that swim and soar, those that sway on roots, as well as those that walk about on two legs. We seek to make a good and lasting home. We strive for a way of life that our descendants will look back on with gratitude, a way of life that is worthy of our magnificent planet.
We need wilderness preserved—as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds—because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it.
To those devoid of imagination, a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.
The love of nature is a passion for those in whom it once lodges. It can never be quenched. It cannot change. It is a furious, burning, physical greed, as well as a state of mystical exaltation. It will have its own.
The woods are drugging. They are too powerful. I can’t describe the grandeur of it all. Nature has upended her horn of plenty here.
The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know. Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: To approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard. To try to sense the range and variety of its expression—its weather and colors and animals. To intend from the beginning to preserve some of the mystery within it as a kind of wisdom to be experienced, not questioned.
The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best. It requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues—self-restraint. Why cannot I take as many trout as I want from a stream? Why cannot I bring home from the woods a rare wildflower? Because if I do, everybody in this democracy should be able to do the same.
Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you.
There are many people who want (or think they want) silence, solitude, and unspoiled nature just enough to push into and destroy all three. They will push as far as, but no farther than, good roads will take them.
Getting back to nature has its points. It makes civilization look very good.
Talk of mysteries!—Think of our life in nature . . . rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?
Listening in wild places, we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.
I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by, or so poor she cannot afford to keep them.
Devoted though we must be to the conservation cause, I do not believe that any of us should give it all of our time or effort or heart. . . . Let us save at least half of our lives for the enjoyment of this wonderful world which still exists. Leave your dens, abandon your cars, and walk out into the great mountains, the deserts, the forests, the seashores. Those treasures still belong to all of us. Enjoy them to the full, stretch your legs, expand your lungs, enliven your hearts—and we will outlive the greedy swine who want to destroy it all in the name of what they call GROWTH. God bless America—let’s save some of it. Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet!