Aldo Leopold Quotes

Quotes about:

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  We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

  Aldo Leopold

  Inspiring, Respect, Nature

  A Sand County Almanac foreword (1949)

  120 Copy quote

• Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal.

  Aldo Leopold

  Behavior, Ethical, Wrong Things

  39 Copy quote

• Land is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.

  Aldo Leopold

  Animal, Garden, Land

  Aldo Leopold (1989). “A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There”, p.216, Oxford University Press, USA

  98 Copy quote

• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

  Aldo Leopold

  Beauty, Nature, Integrity

  A Sand County Almanac pt. 3 (1949)

  73 Copy quote

• The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.

  Aldo Leopold

  Land, Tasks, Pieces

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.548, Library of America

  58 Copy quote

• There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than
  one rooted in pavements.

  Aldo Leopold

  Doubt, Pavement, Soil

  Aldo Leopold, Susan Flader, J. Baird Callicott (1991). “The river of the mother of God and other essays”, Univ of Wisconsin Pr

  70 Copy quote

• This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. On a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it - a vast pulsing harmony - its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.

  Aldo Leopold

  Life, Song, Nature

  "A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There". Book by Aldo Leopold. Chapter "Chihuahua and Sonora: The Green Lagoons", p. 149, 1949.

  38 Copy quote

• Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Land, Lasts

  4 Copy quote

• In wildness is the salvation of the world.

  Aldo Leopold

  World, Salvation, Wildness

  Aldo Leopold (1950). “A Sand County almanac, and Sketches here and there: illus. by Charles W. Schwartz”, New York

  9 Copy quote

• That the situation appears hopeless should not prevent us from doing our
  best.

  Aldo Leopold

  Hopeless, Should, Situation

  48 Copy quote

• There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Flower, Opportunity

  "A Sand County almanac, and Sketches here and there: illus. by Charles W. Schwartz".

  36 Copy quote

• Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.

  Aldo Leopold

  Conservation, Interest, Public Interest

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.473, Library of America

  14 Copy quote

• The first law of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts

  Aldo Leopold

  Funny, Nature, Science

  62 Copy quote

• The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soil, waters, fauna, and flora, as well as people.

  Aldo Leopold

  Integrity, Spring, Practice

  9 Copy quote

• The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Ignorance, Animal

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.557, Library of America

  70 Copy quote

• Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Men, Land

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.145, Oxford University Press

  46 Copy quote

• The hope of the future lies not in curbing the influence of human occupancy - it is already too late for that - but in creating a better understanding of the extent of that influence and a new ethic for its governance.

  Aldo Leopold

  Lying, Creating, Understanding

  Aldo Leopold (1987). “Game Management”, p.18, Univ of Wisconsin Press

  47 Copy quote

• Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

  Aldo Leopold

  Inspirational, Motivational, Hands

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.556, Library of America

  80 Copy quote

• One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

  Aldo Leopold

  Believe, Doctors, Land

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.165, Oxford University Press

  48 Copy quote

• Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Garden, Tree

  "A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There".

  11 Copy quote

• Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.

  Aldo Leopold

  Animal, Social, Attainment

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.13, Oxford University Press

  55 Copy quote

• Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.

  Aldo Leopold

  Beautiful, Art, Nature

  Aldo Leopold (1989). “A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There”, p.96, Oxford University Press, USA

  24 Copy quote

• That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.

  Aldo Leopold

  Respect, Land, Community

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.18, Library of America

  49 Copy quote

• A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken only by humans.

  Aldo Leopold

  Rivers, Broken, Sun

  54 Copy quote

• To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Travel, Imagination

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.209, Library of America

  51 Copy quote

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