Only Economists Mistake Physical Opulence

Our Grandfathers Were Less Well-housed, Well-fed, Well-clothed Than We Are. The Strivings By Which They Bettered Their Lot Are Also Those Which Deprived Us Of [passenger] Pigeons. Perhaps We Now Grieve Because We Are Not Sure, In Our Hearts, That We Have Gained By The Exchange. The Gadgets Of Industry Bring Us More Comforts Than The Pigeons Did, But Do They Add As Much To The Glory Of The Spring?

How Like Fish We Are: Ready, Nay Eager, To Seize Upon Whatever New Thing Some Wind Of Circumstance Shakes Down Upon The River Of Time! And How We Rue Our Haste, Finding The Gilded Morsel To Contain A Hook!

We Reached The Old Wolf In Time To Watch A Fierce Green Fire Dying In Her Eyes. I Realized Then, And Have Known Ever Since, That There Was Something New To Me In Those Eyes – Something Known Only To Her And To The Mountain. I Was Young Then, And Full Of Trigger-itch; I Thought That Because Fewer Wolves Meant More Deer, That No Wolves Would Mean Hunters’ Paradise. But After Seeing The Green Fire Die, I Sensed That Neither The Wolf Nor The Mountain Agreed With Such A View.

An Oak Is No Respecter Of Persons.

...to Any One For Whom Wild Things Are Something More Than A Pleasant Diversion, (conservation) Constitutes One Of The Milestones In Moral Evolution.