WOODS
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I
am not bound for any public place, but for ground
of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and in the heat of the day climbed up intoWe must
change our lives, so that it will be possible to live
by the contrary assumption that what is good for the
world will be good for us. And that requires that
we make the effort to know the world and to learn
what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in
its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even
more important, we must learn to acknowledge that
the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely
understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand
in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of
creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its
presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the
condition of humility and reverence before the world
that our species will be able to remain in it.
~ Wendell
Berry
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"The
most unhappy thing about conservation is that it is
never permanent. Save a priceless woodland or an irreplaceable
mountain today, and tomorrow it is threatened from
another quarter."
~ Hal Borland
When
we talk of flood control, we usually think of dams
and deeper river channels, to impound the waters or
hurry their run-off. Yet neither is the ultimate solution,
simply because floods are caused by the flow of water
downhill. If the hills are wooded, that flow is checked.
If there is a swamp at the foot of the hills, the
swamp sponges up most of the excess water, restores
some of it to the underground water supply and feeds
the remainder slowly into the streams. Strip the hills,
drain the boglands, and you create flood conditions
inevitably. Yet that is what we have been doing for
years.
-- Hal Borland
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*
Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks
in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more
than what is in books, for they speak with the voice
of God.
~ George
Washington Carver
Nothing
is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods
before sunrise.
~ George
Washington Carver
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A
man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains,
rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism
is loyalty to that principle.
-- George William Curtis |
"The
most unhappy thing about conservation is that it is
never permanent. If we save a priceless woodland today,
it is threatened from another quarter tomorrow."
~ Marjory Stoneman Douglas |
"Use
those talents you have. You will make it. You will give
joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods
would be a very silent place if no birds sang except
those who sang best."
-- Bernard Meltzer |
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Keep
close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once
in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in
the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
~ John
Muir
"...Unfortunately, MAN is in the woods, and waste
and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If
the importance of forests were at all understood,
even from an economic standpoint, their preservation
would call forth the most watchful attention of government."
~ John
Muir
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I
went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life, and see
if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
-- Henry
David Thoreau
If
a man walks in the woods for love of them half of
each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer.
But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing
off those woods and making the earth bald before her
time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising
citizen. -- Henry
David Thoreau
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"The
true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking,
or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking
is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and
to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active;
the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear
in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm
and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme
pleasure comes from the talk."
-- Mark
Twain
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