There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal.

most of my wandering in the desert i've done alone. not so much from choice as from necessity - i generally prefer to go into places where no one else wants to go. i find that in contemplating the natural world my pleasure is greater if there are not too many others contemplating it with me, at the same time.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.

God bless America. Let's try to save some of it.

I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.

I believe that there is a kind of poetry, even a kind of truth, in simple fact.

The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.