National Parks Quotes

“How to pry the tourists out of their automobiles, out of their back-breaking upholstered mechanized wheelchairs and onto their feet, onto the strange warmth and solidity of Mother Earth again? This is the problem which the Park Service should confront directly, not evasively, and which it cannot resolve by simply submitting and conforming to the automobile habit.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“There will never be a photograph of the Grand Canyon that can adequately describe its depth, breadth, and true beauty.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“A lake so vibrant in color that it looks like a fine art painting.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“It is safe to say that the Teton Range is as breathtaking as any mountain landscape one could ever see.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“The story is, a man came up to Yosemite and the ranger was sitting at the front gate and the man said, "I've only got one hour to see Yosemite. If you only had one hour to see Yosemite, what would you do?" And the ranger said, "Well, I'd go right over there, and I'd sit on that rock, and I'd cry." - Nevada Barr”
― Dayton Duncan, The National Parks: America's Best Idea

“It is a spectacular illusion – a deeply three-dimensional scene flattened onto an earthly canvas.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“Starker was saying that to be a guardian, you must be a gardener.”
― Jordan Fisher Smith, Engineering Eden: A Violent Death, a Federal Trial, and the Struggle to Restore Nature in Our National Parks

“Starker [Leopold] had an adage for people in public service: 'If you're ashamed of it, don't do it. If you're not, publicize it.' " -David Graber, wildlife biologist at Yosemite National Park”
― Jordan Fisher Smith, Engineering Eden: A Violent Death, a Federal Trial, and the Struggle to Restore Nature in Our National Parks

“I spent my summers at my grandparents’ cabin in Estes Park, literally next door to Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a view of Longs Peak across the valley and the giant rock beaver who, my granddad told me, was forever climbing toward the summit of the mountain. We awoke to mule deer peering in the windows and hummingbirds buzzing around the red-trimmed feeders; spent the days chasing chipmunks across the boulders of Deer Mountain and the nights listening to coyotes howling in the dark.”
― Mary Taylor Young, The Guide to Colorado Mammals

“Glacier National Park in Montana is steadfastly considered to be one of the most beautiful places in the country.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“Ghosts were not the spirits of the dead returning but the memories of the living not yet laid to rest.”
― Nevada Barr, Ill Wind

“I think that is what a national park is all about. It gives people breathing room. It gives people a tranquil atmosphere. It gives them an opportunity to be a part of nature, You're just part of it all." - Juanita Green”
― Dayton Duncan, The National Parks: America's Best Idea

“Freedom. It stays in your head and won't bust out or slip away like tears.”
― Shelton Johnson, Gloryland

“One of the beautiful things about the US National Parks is that they created specifically for the enjoyment of all people -- in the beginning, now, and for the future.”
― Stefanie Payne, The National Parks Journal: Plan & Record Your Trips to the US National Parks

“What Starker Leopold was trying to teach Graber was not to master and control everything but, instead, to remember that because human hands were always unintentionally doing something to nature, they ought to do something carefully planned as well.”
― Jordan Fisher Smith, Engineering Eden: A Violent Death, a Federal Trial, and the Struggle to Restore Nature in Our National Parks

“At one time areas along the roadways [in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park] were carefully cut and trimmed, creating a lawnlike appearance. When a new superintendent was appointed, he ordered this practice stopped, which engendered a good deal of complain from visitors. The roadsides had been so attractive, they said, so neat, and now they had a rough and ungainly appearance. On this small but significant point the superintendent was adamant, however, and for exactly the right reason. Visitors to the park were reacting to a conventional, familiar, and deeply ingrained image of beauty - the trimmed and landscaped lawn. The goal should not be to stimulate that familiar response, but to confront the visitor with the less familiar setting of an unmanaged landscape. The mild shock of a scene to which there is no patterned response, and the engendering of an untutored personal response, is precisely what national park management should seek, even in such seemingly small details.”
― Joseph L. Sax, Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks

“It is impossible to provide unlimited visitation and the essential qualities of an unconventional, non-urban experience simultaneously. Here too a compromise is called for: a willingness to trade quantity for quality of experience. There is nothing undemocratic or even unusual in such a trade. The notion that commitment to democratic principles compels the assumption of scarcity is one of the familiar misconceptions of our time. We need a willingness to value a certain kind of experience highly enough that we are prepared to have fewer opportunists for access in exchange for a different sort of experience when we do get access.”
― Joseph L. Sax, Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks

“We show our love for our national parks by driving hundreds of miles to see them in RVs and SUVs that, at their best, travel fifteen miles per gallon gas.”
― Michael L. Lewis, American Wilderness: A New History

“In letter after letter, misfortunes great and small are blamed on the wood. "I don't know how much I buy that," Matt [Smith] said.."If you're the kinda person who would take something from a national park, maybe you just have poor judgement skills.”
― Conor Knighton, Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park

“Shelton Johnson may just be the best park ranger who ever lived.”
― Conor Knighton, Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park

“It was the end of March and, even though the weather hadn't warmed noticeably at this elevation, the winter buds had begun to swell on the oaks, giving them the quality of knots in fine lace against the gray overcast.”
― James G. Brown, The Morning Side

“Politics is national, but all politics is personal.”
― -ipi(human_bot)

“Survival is balance. Life’s ugliness is balanced by beauty. Trauma is balanced by awe. For me, being on the road has come to represent awe-seeking—what I find in the still-wild places is counterbalance to the traumas.”
― L.M. Browning, Drive Through the Night

“Hitting off-the-beaten-trail landmarks, trail systems, and road routes can offer a taste of the uncommon and unfamiliar while minimizing the impact at heavily trafficked locations.”
― Stefanie Payne, The National Parks Journal: Plan & Record Your Trips to the US National Parks

“The beauty was just mind-boggling for this English girl...It was like being in your own national park, but without the signs telling you what you're supposed to think.”
― Peggy Orenstein, Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater

“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.”
― Benton Mackaye

“In short order, my land of serenity had become a cold, wet and dark encounter with weather, which only time and patience could overcome.”
― Don Follows

“At the heart of conventional conservation is the model of the American national park. The Indian environmentalist Madhav Gadgil writes of the influence of the top-down strategy modeled on Yosemite National Park, whose establishment in 1890 followed the forcible expulsion of the Native Americans who lived there. The history of "America's best idea" goes hand in hand with the history of white supremacy over nature and the Indigenous people of North America.”
― Shahnaz Habib, Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel

“These parks didn't just offer stunning vistas; they provided the backdrop for lessons in resilience, adaptability, and the profound joy of shared experience.”
― Chris Truxell, A National Park Love Story: A Journey to Visit All 63 U.S. National Parks

“The most valuable keepsakes are always the stories we create, the people we share them with, and the deeper appreciation we gain for the life we're building, together.”
― Chris Truxell, A National Park Love Story: A Journey to Visit All 63 U.S. National Parks