Quotes from George Schaller

A ruin is not just something that happened long ago to someone else; its history is that of us all, the transience of power, of ideas, of all human endeavors.

Mountains and deserts, with their sparse life at the limit of existence, make one restless and disconsolate; one becomes an explorer in an intellectual realm as well as in a physical one.

There are never victories in conservation. If you want to save a species or a habitat, it's a fight forevermore. You can never turn your back.

I learned long ago that conservation has no victories, that one must retain connections and remain involved with animals and places that have captured the heart, to prevent their destruction. I am sometimes asked why, given a world that is more wounded and scarred, I do not simply give up, burdened by pessimism. But conservation is my life, I must retain hope

I find it very worrying that we don't talk about nature anymore. We talk about natural resources as if everything had a price tag. You cannot buy spiritual values at a shopping mall. An old-growth forest, a clear river, the flight of a golden eagle, the howl of a wolf, the vitality of a tiger, space and quiet without motors, TVs, mobiles — these are intangibles. Those are the values that people need, that uplift our spirit.