Carol Spenard LaRusso is editor of this edifying and inspiring collection of quotations by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1872) who she calls "America's first environmentalist." He certainly was a lover of nature and a defender of the wilderness — a position which put him in disagreement with others in his time who saw the wilderness as scary and worthless place that needed to be tamed and subdued much like a bucking bronco in a rodeo. Thoreau's famous statement on this matter is: "In wilderness is the preservation of the world."
LaRusso has divided the paperback into eight sections: nature, technology, livelihood, living, possessions, time, diet and food, and aspiration. Here is a sampler of quotations:
• "At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature."
• "Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature — if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you — know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse."
• "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."
• "I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor."
• "Goodness is the only investment that never fails."
