"Beyond the wall of the unreal city, beyond the security fences topped with barbed wire and razor wire, beyond the asphalt belting of the superhighways, beyond the cemented banksides of temporarily stopped and mutilated rivers, beyond the rage of lies that poisons the air, there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then- May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night." - Edward Abbey
"You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything." -Unknown
“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” - Henry Thoreau
"We make ourselves rich by making our wants few." - Henry Thoreau
"Let Nature be your teacher." -William Wordsworth
"Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you." - Carl Sandburg
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life!” - John Muir
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” - John Muir
"There is a pertinent saying in one of the Upanishads: "When before the beauty of a sunset or of a mountain you pause and exclaim, 'Ah,' you are participating in divinity." Such a moment of participation involves a realization of the wonder and sheer beauty of existence. People living in the world of nature experience such moments every day. They live in the recognition of something there that is much greater than the human dimension."
- Joseph Campbell; The Power of Myth
"You must be able to do this on your own." - David Hernandez
"The silken rush of woodland waters and the scoured shapes of the desert - these and countless other treasures we owe to those farsighted enough to have preserved the public lands that make up our inheritance."
- T.H. Watkins
"In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird." - George Orwell, 1984
"Yet why should Man mistaken deem it nobler, To dwell in Palaces and high-rooft Halls, Than in God's Forests, Architect supreme!" - Joseph Warton, The Enthusiast; or, The Lover of Nature (1744)
"I found myself feeling sorry for any man who was not free to abandon whatever futility detained him and to walk away into the desert morning with a pack on his back." - Colin Fletcher, The Thousand-Mile Summer, 1958.
"So-called "global warming" is just a secret ploy by sicko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel-efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don't let them get away with it." - Chip Giller of Grist.org