The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.

No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal chage in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions.

The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations

I love all trees, but I am in love with pines.

I confess my own leisure to be spent entirely in search of adventure, without regard to prudence, profit, self improvement, learning, or any other serious thing.

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.

It is part of wisdom never to revisit a wilderness, for the more golden the lily, the more certain that someone has gilded it