The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

All power rests on hierarchy: An army is nothing but a well-organized lynch mob.

A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American.

Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.

The sexual revolution transformed the American West: Now even cowboys can get laid.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary.