To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.

A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.

Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.

Every measured thing is part of a web of variables more richly interconnected than we know.

The exquisite sight, sound, and smell of wilderness is many times more powerful if it is earned through physical achievement, if it comes at the end of a long and fatiguing trip for which vigorous good health is necessary. Practically speaking, this means that no one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.

The three filters [against folly] operate through these particular questions: Literacy: What are the words? Numeracy: What are the numbers? Ecolacy: And then what?

The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.