When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A deep connection to nature is akin to the love we have for others, making it hard to abandon our natural world.
Terry Tempest Williams emphasizes the profound relationship we can have with the wilderness, suggesting that if we truly understand and cherish nature as we do with love, we would find it difficult to part with it. This connection signifies a larger narrative about our history and future, hinting at the importance of preserving nature for ourselves and future generations.
Themes
WildernessLoveNatureConnectionFuture
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might use this quote to highlight the intimate bond between humans and nature.
More from Terry Tempest Williams
All quotes →The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy?
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk, was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
How do we remain faithful to our own spiritual imagination and not betray what we know in our own bodies? The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Similar quotes
It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.
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...full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity.
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Any observer is an intruder in the domain of a wild animal and must remember that the rights of that animal supersede human interests. An observer must also keep in mind that an animal's memories of one day's contact might well be reflected in the following day's behavior.
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You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.
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No one is an environmentalist by birth. It is only your path, your life, your travels that awaken you.
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In Kenya women are the first victims of environmental degradation, because they are the ones who walk for hours looking for water, who fetch firewood, who provide food for their families.
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