Health Is The Capacity Of The Land

The Sweetest Hunts Are Stolen. To Steal A Hunt, Either Go Far Into The Wilderness Where No One Has Been, Or Else Find Some Undiscovered Place Under Everybody's Nose

We All Strive For Safety, Prosperity, Comfort, Long Life, And Dullness. The Deer Strives With His Supple Legs, The Cowman With Trap And Poison, The Statesman With Pen, The Most Of Us With Machines, Votes, And Dollars. A Measure Of Success In This Is All Well Enough, And Perhaps Is A Requisite To Objective Thinking, But Too Much Safety Seems To Yield Only Danger In The Long Run. Perhaps This Is Behind Thoreau's Dictum: In Wilderness Is The Salvation Of The World. Perhaps This Is The Hidden Meaning In The Howl Of The Wolf, Long Known Among Mountains, But Seldom Perceived Among Men.

Only The Mountain Has Lived Long Enough To Listen Objectively To The Howl Of The Wolf.

Harmony With Land Is Like Harmony With A Friend; You Cannot Cherish His Right Hand And Chop Off His Left.

Ability To See The Cultural Value Of Wilderness Boils Down, In The Last Analysis, To A Question Of Intellectual Humility. The Shallow-minded Modern Who Has Lost His Rootage In The Land Assumes That He Has Already Discovered What Is Important.