Francis Parkman
- The Wilderness
To him who has once tasted the reckless independence which the forest life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems flat and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, its conventionalities, duties and mutual dependence alike tedious and disgusting. The wilderness has charms more potent in their seductive influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth. And often he on whom it has cast its magic finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains a wanderer and an Ishmaelite to the hour of his death.
Larry Dean Olsen
- On Hunting
Animal life is an important source of food for survival. But the hunting and trapping of animals for food and other needs, such as clothing and tools, requires a great deal of prowess and patience. One must be trained to be a good hunter and trapper, and one must observe a certain code of conduct during that training. All life, from a tiny insect to a hot-tempered moose, has a sacred right to fulfill the measure of its creation, and in no way does this require that a beast become sport for man.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
- Having and Adventure
Having an adventure shows that someone is incompetent, that somethings has gone wrong. An adventure is interesting enough in retrospect, especially to the person who didn't have it; at the time it happens it usually constitutes an exceedingly disagreeable experience.
Aldo Leopold
- A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There
There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question of whether a 'still higher' standard of living is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us in the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.
