“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

Nothing truly wild is unclean.

Nothing truly wild is unclean.

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill.

The world, we are told, was made especially for man – a presumption not supported by all the facts.

Not blind opposition to progress,but opposition to blind progress.

Who wouldn’t be a mountaineer! Up here all the world’s prizes seem nothing.

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death.

The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.

Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.

One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was made for itself.

Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get – people, storms, guardian angels, or sheep.

Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.

Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly.

Nature hath no goal though she hath law.

We can do nothing ourselves; God must do it. To speak to Him thus is easier by nature for woman than for man because a natural desire lives in her to give herself completely to someone.

Fragments of the natural method must be sought with the greatest care. This is the first and last desideratum among botanists. Nature makes no jumps. All taxa show relationships on all sides like the countries on a map of the world.

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled. Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.

The veneration, wherewith Men are imbued for what they call Nature, has been a discouraging impediment to the Empire of Man over the inferior Creatures of God. For many have not only look’d upon it, as an impossible thing to compass, but as something impious to attempt.

I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.

Through knowledge we behold the world’s creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature’s cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass.