As I discovered a few years ago, once you learn that you can measure the size of raindrops by looking at the colors in a rainbow – the more red, the bigger the drops.

Most of the walking books I have come across over the years get bogged down in obsessive attention to safety and equipment. I have rarely found myself enjoying these books, because I do not go walking with the purpose of staying within a world of perfect safety and comfort. Personally, I would rather die walking than die of boredom reading about how to walk safely.

I would rather die walking than die of boredom reading about how to walk safely. This.

Randomness is not a great survival strategy, so it is rare in nature.

Sadly, the natural world is not short of people who believe that rattling off Latin names incessantly makes them appear clever, whereas most of us know instinctively that this suggests insecurity at best, but possibly social and sexual dysfunction as well. If somebody corrects you sternly by using an obtuse name for something, they probably know neither human nature nor any other kind very profoundly.

It should be expected that we will find wonder in a vast mountain landscape, but it is a more serious challenge to find wonder in a hill. It is a great achievement to find it in a molehill.

علاقه‌ی ما به طبیعت معمولاً به این شکل آغاز نمی‌شود که عاشق کل طبیعت شویم، چون کلیت آن خیلی مبهم و در نتیجه به نظرمان بی‌معنی است. ولی در نقطه‌ای، چیزی از طبیعت کشف می‌کنیم که با شور و اشتیاق درونی ما سازگار است.

This is what the great artists manage. They flatter us, by observing better than others and then speaking to each of us as individuals and in a language that we worry we may be the only ones left caring for.