Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.

To build a road is so much simpler than to think of what the country really needs.

An Ecologist lives in a world of wounds.

Land health is the capacity for self-renewal in the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise the land.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.

Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf.

My dog does not care where heat comes from, but he cares that it comes, and soon. Indeed he considers my ability to make it come as something magical, for when I rise in the coal black pre-dawn and kneel by the hearth to make a fire, he pushes himself blandly between me and the kindling splits I have laid in the ashes, and I must touch a match to them by poking it between his legs. Such faith , I suppose, is the kind that moves mountains.