A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

Society is a like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

Somewhere in the depths of soltitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.

Wilderness complements and completes civilization. I might say that the existence of wilderness is also a compliment to civilization. Any society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name of civilization.

Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront

When a man's best friend is his dog, the dog has a problem.

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.

There is this to be said for walking: it's the one mode of human locomotion by which a man proceeds on his own two feet, upright, erect, as a man should be, not squatting on his rear haunches like a frog.

I just realized some things make me happier, and the good weather in California makes me happier.