One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.

We stand guard over works of art, but species representing the work of aeons are stolen from under our noses

We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but to strive.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.

When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver: He could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker: He could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.

We face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free.