Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who re...sembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record--Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages--you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For believe me!--the secret to harvesting the greatest abundance and the greatest enjoyment from existence is this--living dangero...usly! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors, so long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you knowing ones! The time will soon be past when you could be content to live hidden in the forests like timid deer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption and think ...it long of coming. Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's good fun.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Again, he felt a crude ecstasy. He could not have given the reason, but the mountain tormented him, beckoned him, held an answer t...o something he wanted. It was so pure, so austere.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am afraid if there is anything to be afraid of. A precipice cannot hurt you. Lions and tigers can. The streets of New York I con...sider more dangerous than the Matterhorn to a thoroughly competent and careful climber.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Climbing is unadulterated hard labor. The only real pleasure is the satisfaction of going where no man has been before and where f...ew can follow.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nothing to mountaineering, just a little physical endurance, a good deal of brains, lots of practice, and plenty of warm clothing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Narrowed-down by her early editors and anthologists, reduced to quaintness or spinsterish oddity by many of her commentators, sent...imentalized, fallen-in-love with like some gnomic Garbo, still unread in the breadth and depth of her full range of work, she was, and is, a wonder to me when I try to imagine myself into that mind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children, I talks to God and God talks to me. I goes out and talks to God in de fields and de woods. Dis morning I was walking out..., and I got over de fence. I saw de wheat a holding up its head, looking very big. I goes up and takes holt ob it. You b'lieve it, dere was no wheat dare? I says, God, what is de matter wid dis wheat? and he says to me, "Sojourner, dere is a little weasel in it." Now I hears talkin' about de Constitution and de rights of man. I comes up and I takes hold of dis Constitution. it looks mighty big, and I feels for my rights, but der aint any dare. Den, I says, God, what ails dis Constitution? He says to me, "Sojourner, dere is a little weasel in it." I carry no weapon; the Lord will reserve [i.e., preserve] me without weapons, I feel safe even in the midst of my enemies; for the truth is powerful and will prevail.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »