Wilderness is a continuous stretch of country preserved in its natural state, open to lawful hunting and fishing, big enough to absorb a two weeks' pack trip, and kept devoid of roads, artificial trails, cottages, or other works of man.

Our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides, but they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history, to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing.

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

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

I know a painting so evanescent that it is seldom viewed at all except by some wandering deer. It is a river who wields the brush and it is the same river who before I can bring my friends to view his work erases it forever from human view. After that it exists only in my mind's eye.

The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills. They represented complete freedom to make mistakes. The wilderness gave those rewards and penalties, for wise and foolish acts against which civilization has built a thousand buffers.