In social affairs, I'm an optimist. I really do believe that our military- industrial civilization will soon collapse.

A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.

Every important change in our society, for the good, at least, has taken place because of popular pressure-pressure from below, from the great mass of people.

The world is older and bigger than we are. This is a hard truth for some folks to swallow.

We spend more time working for our labor-saving machines than they do working for us.

We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men.

There is a wine called Easy Days and Mellow Nights, well-known on the outskirts of the Navajo reservation. It is an economical wine, fortified with the best of intentions, and I recommend it to every serious wino.