With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me and about me, I walk,
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty

The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyality to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need -- if only we had the eyes to see ... No, wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, as vital to our lives as water and good bread.

The white men was many and we could not hold our own with them. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears ... We were contented to let things remain as the Great spirit made them. They were not, and would change the rivers ... if they did not suit them.

What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?

I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

[Published in Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle, 1990; it was shown in 1992 to have been largely a forgery by television scriptwriter Ted Perry for a historical epic in 1971. The sentiment, nevertheless, stands incontrovertable.]

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Ni troime an lach an lacha (The lake is not heavier for the duck). Nor is it disturbed by it, nor does it show any trace of it once it has taken wing and flown away. We, on the other hand, leave a residue of debris wherever we go.

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life.

Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep confession.

If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.

That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.