“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

— Henry David Thoreau , book Walking

Source: Walking (June 1862)

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Henry David Thoreau 385

1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist

Settlers on this continent from the beginning have been seeking that wilderness and its wildness. The explorers and pioneers were out on the edge, seeking that wildness because they could sense that in Europe everything had become locked tight with things. The things were owned by all the same people and all of the roads went in the same direction forever. When we got here there was a sense of possibility and new direction, and it had to do with wildness.
The Paris Review interview (1994)

“To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.”

Agatha Christie book Hallowe'en Party

Source: Hallowe'en Party

“Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame, a flatterer.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

Sejanus (1603), Act I

“Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind

St. I
Ode to the West Wind (1819)

“The wild world is the human world.”

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

"The Wisdom of Wilderness" in LIFE (22 December 1967)
Context: The wild world is the human world. Having evolved in it for millions of centuries, we are not far removed by a cloth of civilization. It is packed into our genes. In fact, the more power-driven, complex and delicate our civilization becomes, the more likelihood arises that a collapse will force us back to wildness. There is in wildness a natural wisdom that shapes all Earth's experiments with life. Can we tap this wisdom without experiencing the agony of reverting to wildness? Can we combine it with intellectual developments of which we feel so proud, use it to redirect our modern trends before they lead to a worse breakdown than past civilizations have experienced? I believe we can, and that to do so we must learn from the primitive.

“Wild days, wild riders, and the stink of warfare across the world!”

Michael Moorcock book The Sword of the Dawn

Book 1, Chapter 3 “Elvereza Tozer” (p. 269)
The Sword of the Dawn (1968)

“In turbulence is the preservation of the world.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

“This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"Love the Wild Swan" (1935)
Context: This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your... self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.

“The world is really wild at heart and weird on top.”

Barry Gifford book Wild at Heart

Source: Wild at Heart

“In a world of monotonous horror
there could be no salvation in wild dreaming.”

Richard Matheson book I Am Legend

Source: I Am Legend

“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

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Henry David Thoreau 385

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