Wildness

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness—to regard man as an inhabitant of Nature, rather than a member of society.

I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest.

To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in. So it is with man. A town is saved by the woods and swamps that surround it.

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.

Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. Give me the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.

All good things are wild and free.

H.D Thoreau, Walking (1861)