Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
-John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
I find that the further I go back, the better things were, whether they happened or not.
- Mark Twain. American humorist, writer and lecturer, 1835-1910
Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devised at first
To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
But where there is true friendship, there needs none.
~William Shakespeare, The Life of Timon of Athens (Timon at I, ii)~