“One of the simplest things about all facts of life is that to get where you want to go, you must keep on keeping on.”
Source: The Tough-Minded Optimist
“Although I was four years at the University [of Wisconsin], I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer.”
Source: Essential Muir
“Physical changes take place continuously, while chemical changes take place discontinuously. Physics deals chiefly with continuous varying quantities, while chemistry deals chiefly with whole numbers.”
Source: Treatise on Thermodynamics
“We are consuming our forests three times faster than they are being reproduced. Some of the richest timber lands of this continent have already been destroyed, and not replaced, and other vast areas are on the verge of destruction. Yet forests, unlike mines, can be so handled as to yield the best results of use, without exhaustion, just like grain fields.”
Source: Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
“I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring Godful beauty.”
Source: JOHN MUIR Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies & Letters (Illustrated): Picturesque California, The Treasures of the Yosemite, Our National Parks, Steep Trails, Travels in Alaska, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Save the Redwoods, The Cruise of the Corwin and more
“Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at the bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily given for the future.”
Source: Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
“Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”
Source: The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations
“More and more, as it becomes necessary to preserve the game, let us hope that the camera will largely supplant the rifle.”
Source: The Green Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt in Appreciation of Wilderness, Wildlife, and Wild Places
“Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so.”
Source: Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
“The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
Source: Works: Presidential addresses and state papers, Dec. 3, 1901, June 1910, and European addresses. 8 v
