So friends, every day do something that won't compute.

As long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful.

The wrecking ball is characteristic of our way with materials. We 'cannot afford' to log a forest selectively, to mine without destroying topography, or to farm without catastrophic soil erosion. A production-oriented economy can indeed live in this way, but only so long as production lasts.

Humans, like all other creatures, must make a difference; otherwise, they cannot live. But unlike other creatures, humans must make a choice as to the kind and scale of difference they make. If they choose to make too small a difference, they diminish their humanity. If they choose to make too great a difference, they diminish nature, and narrow their subsequent choices; ultimately, they diminish or destroy themselves. Nature, then, is not only our source but also our limit and measure.

A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

The acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of ignorance-almost is the revelation of ignorance.