“Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

“The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in the Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

“A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said.”

“All good things are wild and free.”

“Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. ”

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

“The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”