The good of the whole of Creation, the world and all its creatures together, is never a consideration because it is never thought of; our culture now simply lacks the means for thinking of it.

The rule, acknowledged or not, seems to be that if we have great power we must use it. We would use a steam shovel to pick up a dime. We have experts who can prove there is no other way to do it.

The shoddy work of despair, the pointless work of pride, equally betray Creation. They are wastes of life.

I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.

There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.

There are endless ways to amuse oneself and be idle, and most of them lie outside the woods. I assume that when a man goes to the woods he goes because he needs to. I think he is drawn to the wilderness much as he is drawn to a woman: it is, in its way, his opposite. It is as far as possible unlike his home or his work or anything he will ever manufacture. For that reason he can take from it a solace-an understanding of himself, of what he needs and what he can do without-such as he can find nowhere else.

People who want to see the beauty of nature from motorboats and automobiles would obviously be just as pleased, and as fully recreated, at a drive-in movie.