But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. . . . Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.

We console ourselves with the comfortable fallacy that a single museum piece will do, ignoring the clear dictum of history that a species must be saved in many places if it is to be saved at all.

Wildlife administration, in this respect, is not yet a profession.

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.

Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient.

The richest values of wilderness lie not in the days of Daniel Boone, nor even in the present, but rather in the future.

Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal.