Benton MacKaye Quotes

For we need this thing wilderness far more than it needs us. Civilizations (like glaciers) come and go, but the mountain and its forest continue the course of creation’s destiny. And in this we mere humans can take part-by fitting our civilization to the mountain.
BENTON MACKAYE

Civilization Destiny Nature Wilderness
There are three things: to walk, to see, and to see what you see.
BENTON MACKAYE

Things Three Walks
However useful may be the National Parks and Forests of the West for those affording the Pullman fare to reach them, what is needed by the bulk of the American population is something nearer home.
BENTON MACKAYE

Home National Parks Population
Wilderness is two things-fact and feeling. It is a fund of knowledge and a spring of influence. It is the ultimate source of health-terrestrial and human.
BENTON MACKAYE

Feelings Spring Two
One function, at least, of true wilderness is to provide a refuge from the crassitudes of civilization-whether visible, intangible, audible-whether of billboard, of pavement, of auto horn-all of these are urban essences; all are negations of wilderness.
BENTON MACKAYE

Civilization Essence Pavement
A period recourse into the wilds is not a retreat into secret silent sanctums to escape a wicked world, it is to take breath amid effort to forge a better world.
BENTON MACKAYE

Effort Escaping Nature
If the purpose be Cannibalism (preference for Ham a la Capitalism) then nobody but a Cannibal should be admitted. There should be plenty of discussion and disagreement as to how and the means but none whatever as to ends.
BENTON MACKAYE

Cannibal Capitalism Disagreement Discussion Purpose

Other Famous Personalities