Quotes About Wilderness

beyond the confluence lies the wilderness of the Needles country, known to only a few cowboys and uranium prospectors; on the west side of the junction is another labyrinth of canyons, pinnacles and fins of naked stone, known to even fewer, closer than anything else in the forty-eight United States to being genuine terra incognita—The Maze.

But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need—if only we had the eyes to see. Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us—if only we were worthy of it.

pagan and hedonistic people (thank God!), we are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Therefore let us behave accordingly.

Yet their song, if not a mating call or a warning, must be what it sounds like, a brooding meditation on space, on solitude. The game.

Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.

Edward Abbey

We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we many never need to go there.

the lids, have taken on a coral-pink, the color of the dunes.

For myself I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous

Hinton walked blindly toward his truck, unwrapping his candy bar, while the cicada in the field and the frogs in the swampy ditch sang hosannas to the sky. PART TWO

There is a certain primitive attraction in it," Bondi said, "but what about the future? Are we to spend the rest of our lives shooting animals, chewing skins, hiding out from game wardens and county sheriffs?

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.

A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.

The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.

Wilderness. The word itself is music.

Come to Marlboro country.

I must go walk so the wood so wild,And wander here and thereIn dread and deadly fear;For where I trusted I am beguiled,And all for one.

Campers: Nature's way of feeding mosquitoes.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years.

The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.

For I must to the greenwood go,Alone, a banished man.