Top 8 Quotes & Sayings by Benton MacKaye

Explore popular quotes and sayings by Benton MacKaye.
Last updated on December 18, 2024.
Benton MacKaye

Benton MacKaye was an American forester, planner and conservationist. He was born in Stamford, Connecticut; his father was actor and dramatist Steele MacKaye. After studying forestry at Harvard University, Benton later taught there for several years. He joined a number of Federal bureaus and agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the U.S. Department of Labor; he was also a member of the Technical Alliance where he participated in the Energy Survey of North America.

March 6, 1879 - December 11, 1975
One function, at least, of true wilderness is to provide a refuge from the crassitudes of civilization-whether visible, intangible, audible-whether of billboard, of pavement, of auto horn-all of these are urban essences; all are negations of wilderness.
However useful may be the National Parks and Forests of the West for those affording the Pullman fare to reach them, what is needed by the bulk of the American population is something nearer home.
The problem of living is at bottom an economic one. And this alone is bad enough, even in a period of so-called "normalcy." But living has been considerably complicated of late in various ways - by war, by questions of personal liberty, and by "menaces" of one kind or another.
For we need this thing wilderness far more than it needs us. Civilizations (like glaciers) come and go, but the mountain and its forest continue the course of creation's destiny. And in this we mere humans can take part-by fitting our civilization to the mountain.
My own doctrine of organization is that any body of people coming together for a purpose (whatever it may be) should consist of persons wholly wedded to said purpose and should consist of nobody else. If the purpose be Cannibalism (preference for Ham a la Capitalism) then nobody but a Cannibal should be admitted. There should be plenty of discussion and disagreement as to how and the means but none whatever as to ends.
There are three things: to walk, to see, and to see what you see.
Wilderness is two things-fact and feeling. It is a fund of knowledge and a spring of influence. It is the ultimate source of health-terrestrial and human. — © Benton MacKaye
Wilderness is two things-fact and feeling. It is a fund of knowledge and a spring of influence. It is the ultimate source of health-terrestrial and human.
A period recourse into the wilds is not a retreat into secret silent sanctums to escape a wicked world, it is to take breath amid effort to forge a better world.
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