David Brower

"The photographs speak what words cannot express about the beauty we stand to lose."

"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere."

"Conservation without confrontation is merely conversation."

"The battle for the soul of America is being fought in the forests and canyons."

"What we do with the land will define who we are as a people."

"There is a fifth freedom—freedom from fear of the future."

"We must choose between the quick profit and the lasting gift."

"The Grand Canyon did not get its majesty from a vote; it earned it through time."

"Preservation is not about keeping things old; it is about honoring the ancient wisdom in nature."

"If we continue on this path, we will inherit a world of our own making—and we will regret it."

"The photographer and the poet see what others overlook."

"Economic growth that destroys the living world is not growth—it is decline."

"We are all downstream; we are all downstream from someone else's ignorance."

"The mountains do not care about our politics or our economics; they simply endure."

"Wilderness preserved is democracy demonstrated."

"The conflict between resource exploitation and resource preservation is the defining issue of our time."

"Beauty is a moral imperative."

"We cannot solve the problem at the level at which the problem was created."

"The earth's riches are not infinite, but human greed is."

"A tree cut down has spoken its last word; a tree standing tells stories for generations."

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."

"The national parks are America's best idea—and we are letting them slip away."

"True progress is measured not in GDP but in the health of the next generation."

"We must become the ancestors our children deserve."

"The battle for wilderness is the battle for the soul of civilization."

"Industrial civilization is a grand mistake that grows more obvious each day."

"Photography is not a luxury; it is a form of witness."

"We are capable of so much more than we have imagined."

"The Sierra Nevada is not just a mountain range; it is a monument to what remains possible."

"Development that ignores the future is no development at all."