When a man’s best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.

Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.

What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothin’ can beat teamwork.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

Our ‘neoconservatives’ are neither new nor conservative, but old as Bablyon and evil as Hell.

When a man’s best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.

That which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages – as if the savages weren’t dangerous enough already.

Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.

Say what you like about my bloody murderous government,’ I says, ‘but don’t insult me poor bleedin’ country.

Grown men do not need leaders.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

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

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

If the end does not justify the means – what can?

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

Taxation: how the sheep are shorn.

A drink a day keeps the shrink away.

You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light.