My favorite quote: The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.

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

The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on.... A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.

Prudence never kindled a fire in the human mind; I have no hope for conservation born of fear.

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken only by humans.

What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land?