Poor Hayduke: won all his arguments but lost his immortal soul. - Edward Abbey

We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may not ever need to go there.

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.

Wordless, it rises and falls in hemidemisemitones of unearthly misery. The dirge of the damned