God bless America. Let's try to save some of it.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. … We need wilderness preserved — as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds — because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it.

If we save our wild places, we will ultimately save ourselves.

I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

I believe that the ten billion people expected to be present at the end of the century will enjoy a far better quality of life if we conserve half of the planet for nature than if we consume nature entirely.

If you want to save the world, save your little corner of the world.

My job is to save the fucking wilderness. I don’t know anything else worth saving.

Would you kill half the population today in order to save our species from extinction?

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

We've got to step up our conservation efforts before it's too late. We're not protecting our lands and natural resources. Take the Grand Canyon for example; I'm sure that at one time it was a beautiful piece of land, and just look at the way we've let it go.

A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.

The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans. Our challenge for the future is that we realize we are very much a part of the earth's ecosystem, and we must learn to respect and live according to the basic biological laws of nature.

In wildness is the preservation of the world. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The city imports it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.