Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Conservation

• What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspiring, Peace

  Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.79, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• In wildness is the preservation of the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Camping, World, Transcendentalism

  "Walking" (1862)

• Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Insperational

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.71, Trajectory Inc

• It is a thorough process, this war with the wilderness - breaking nature, taming the soil. feeding it on oats. The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy. He will fell it and let in the light, grub it up and raise wheat or rye there. It is no better than a fungus to him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, Light

  David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.38, Harvard University Press

• Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the earth," - our forests, not to hold the king's game merely, but to hold and preserve the king himself also, the lord of creation, - not for idle sport or food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sports, Kings, Inspiration

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “The Maine Woods - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.102, Read Books Ltd

• It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Doors, Boulders, Would Be

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.226, Courier Corporation

• As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Rare Beauty, Crowns

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.3047, Delphi Classics

• I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Apples, Fields

  Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Natural History Essays”, p.209, Gibbs Smith

• The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder, - and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Memories, Cutting

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.158

• Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Glasses, Sky

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.217, Courier Corporation

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