When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver: He could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker: He could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called sportsmanship.

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

If we lose our wilderness, we have nothing left worth fighting for.

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

In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.