Mechanized recreation already has seized nine-tenths of the woods and mountains; a decent respect for minorities should dedicate the other tenth to wilderness.

To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

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

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

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them

Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.