Third, there is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called 'sportsmanship'. Our tools for the pursuit of wildlife improve faster than we do, and sportsmanship is the voluntary limitation in the use of these armaments. It is aimed to augment the role of skill and shrink the role of Gadgets in the pursuit of wild things.

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.

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.

Every farm woodland, in addition to yielding lumber, fuel and posts, should provide its owner a liberal education. This crop of wisdom never fails, but it is not always harvested.

Conservation viewed in its entirety, is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.

A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken only by humans.