Gary Snyder

When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.

— Gary Snyder

stay together learn the flowers go light

— Gary Snyder

True affluence is not needing anything.

— Gary Snyder

In Western Civilization, our elders are books.

— Gary Snyder

You don't want to be victimized by your lesser talents.

— Gary Snyder

To work on behalf of the wild is to restore culture

— Gary Snyder

Thought is just an apprehension of touch.

— Gary Snyder

Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place.

— Gary Snyder

A great poet does not express his or her self; he expresses all of our selves.

— Gary Snyder

“The other side of the "sacred" is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.”

— Gary Snyder

Clouds sink down the hills Coffee is hot again. The dog Turns and turns about, stops and sleeps.

— Gary Snyder

“Around Jack (Kerouac) there circulated a palpable aura of fame and death.”

— Gary Snyder

Wildness is not just the "preservation of the world," it is the world

— Gary Snyder

O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!

— Gary Snyder

Place and the scale of space must be measured against our bodies and their capabilities.

— Gary Snyder

Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?

— Gary Snyder

Read carefully, then don't read; work hard, then forget about it; know your tradition, then liberate yourself from it; learn language, then…

— Gary Snyder

Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking,…

— Gary Snyder

“When men see Han-shan They all say he's crazy And not much to look at - Dressed in rags and hides. They…

— Gary Snyder

I recalled when I worked in the woods and the bars of Madras, Oregon. That short-haired joy and roughness America your stupidity.…

— Gary Snyder

I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may the true measure of things and stand against…

— Gary Snyder

Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance…

— Gary Snyder

Forests in the tropics are cut to make pasture to raise beef for the American market. Our distance from the source of…

— Gary Snyder

If, after obtaining Buddhahood, anyone in my land gets tossed in jail on a vagrancy rap, may I not attain highest perfect…

— Gary Snyder

The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating…

— Gary Snyder

In Paul Friedrich's book Proto-Indo-European Trees he identifies the "semantic primitives" of the Indo-European tribe of languages through a group of words…

— Gary Snyder

“If we are here for any good purpose at all (other than collating texts, running rivers, and learning the stars), I suppose…

— Gary Snyder

Human beings everywhere in the world are affected by the global media now. Still, what I have noticed in the east Asia,…

— Gary Snyder

For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel;…

— Gary Snyder

“I have lived at Cold Mountain These thirty long years. Yesterday I called on friends and family: More than half had gone…

— Gary Snyder

For several centuries Western civilization has had a drive for material accumulation, continual extensions of economic power, termed 'progress'...The longing for growth…

— Gary Snyder

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of…

— Gary Snyder

Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses

— Gary Snyder

Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.

— Gary Snyder

Range after range of mountains. Year after year after year. I am still in love.

— Gary Snyder

“In this huge old occidental culture our teaching elders are books. Books are our grandparents!”

— Gary Snyder

I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life, And dammit, that’s just what I’ve…

— Gary Snyder

Nature is orderly. That which appears to be chaotic in nature is only a more complex kind of order.

— Gary Snyder

“My love thoughts these days Come thick like the summer grass Which soon as cut and raked Grows”

— Gary Snyder

The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom.

— Gary Snyder