...in wildness is the preservation of the world.
--Henry David Thoreau
What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness!
--Helen Keller
"The mountains are calling and I must go."
--John Muir
Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
--Walt Whitman
The most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.
--Bob Marshall
These are islands in time -- with nothing to date them on the calendar of mankind. In these areas it is as though a person were looking backward into the ages and forward untold years. Here are bits of eternity, which have a preciousness beyond all accounting.
--Harvey Broome
In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.
--Charles A. Lindbergh (1967)
"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."
--John Muir
Keep close to Nature's heart, yourself;
and break clear away, once in a while,
and climb a mountain
or spend a week in the woods.
Wash your spirit clean.
--John Muir
