The famous balance of nature is the most extraordinary of all cybernetic systems. Left to itself, it is always self-regulated.

Long before I ever saw the desert I was aware of the mystical overtones which the observation of nature made audible to me. But I have never been more frequently or more vividly aware of them than in connection with the desert phenomena.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

In the long run our boasted control of nature is a delusion.

Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.

And the thing which is missing is love, some feeling for, as well as some understanding of, the inclusive community of rocks and soils, plants and animals, of which we are a part.

Nature takes no account of even the most reasonable of human excuses.