Daily Inspiration Quote by David R. Brower

There’s a sly, self-effacing grin tucked inside Brower’s brag. He starts by anointing the Sierra Club as “very good” and “very powerful,” then pivots to the kind of fact that usually stings an ousted leader: the organization grew faster after he left. Brower turns that potential humiliation into proof of institutional health. The punchline - “It must be doing something right” - lands as both compliment and absolution, a way of saying: if the mission is winning, the messy politics don’t get the last word.

The subtext is inseparable from Brower’s biography. As the Sierra Club’s first executive director, he helped modernize environmental advocacy - mass membership, media savvy, headline battles over dams and wilderness. He was also famously difficult, a maximalist who pushed the Club from genteel nature appreciation into confrontational politics. His departure in 1969, after clashes over finances and strategy, could have been framed as a cautionary tale about movement leaders who outgrow their institutions. Brower refuses that script.

The line also performs a strategic lesson for activism: durability matters. By praising growth without claiming credit, he elevates the organization over the personality. Yet the irony remains delicious: only someone confident in his own historical impact can joke that the machine runs better without him. It’s magnanimity with an edge - a reminder that conservation isn’t a one-man crusade, but also that crusaders often build the very platforms that later push them out.