17 Quotes by Everett Ruess

I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail leading into the unknown to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bread by cities... it is enough that I am surrounded by beauty.

I'll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.

At times, the impact of the natural world was "so far beyond my powers to convey that it almost made me despair.

I must pack my short lifer full of interesting events and creative activity. Philosophy and aesthetic contemplation are not enough. I intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development. Then, and before physical deterioration obtrudes, I shall go on some last wilderness trip to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return.

While I am alive, I intend to live.

I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. why muck and conceal one’s true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?

I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time.

I shall go on some last wilderness trip, to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return.

But then, I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.