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Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold Quotes

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Famous Aldo Leopold Quotes

“Like all real treasures of the mind, perception can be split into infinitely small fractions without losing its quality. The weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods; the farmer may see in his cow-pasture what may not be vouchsafed to the scientist adventuring in the South Seas.”

MindMayRealCitiesQualitySeaLessonsPerceptionLosingScientistSouthTreasureWeedFarmersCowsSplitsFractionsPasturesRedwoodsAdventuring
Book:A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There
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“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. 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. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the aesthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture”

MenWayMayUseCultureCommunityLandCapableConceptsAbuseRegardImpactBelongingAestheticCommodityConservationHarvestReapContributingLove And RespectLand Conservation
Book:A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
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“I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades.”

YearsMayDoeTwoThreeCausesFailingMountainDecadesMortalsRangeSuspectsThree YearsReplacedBucksHerdsDeerReplacements
Book:A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
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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.”

MayUseNatureCommunityNaturalInspiringEnvironmentLandOceanRespectAbuseRegardGreenEnvironmentalCaringPreservesWildernessBelongingSustainabilityPollutionEcologyCommodityConservationPreservationNatural WorldOur EnvironmentWildlifeBeginningOur CommunityMother EarthNatural EnvironmentLove And RespectNature And EnvironmentSave Mother EarthNature LoveEarth And NatureNature ConservationGreen LivingWildlife ConservationEco FriendlyThe Wild NatureConservingInspiring NatureEnvironmental PollutionInspirational EnvironmentalEnergy ConservationGo GreenLand ConservationLove And NatureWhere You BelongEnvironmental SustainabilityLand UseWildlife And NatureConserving EnvironmentDeep EcologyUse And AbuseProtect NatureCommunity LivingCommunity Garden
Author:Aldo Leopold
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“But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. . . . Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.”

MayLittlesLyingLostClearEconomicStageMaterialsHealthyBlessingCapacityBiggerObsessedContemptCrystalsBigger And BetterHypochondriac
Book:Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)
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“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. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one.”

IfsKnowsNeedsMayKnow HowVirtueTreeExampleCreationPoetPlantFolksCuriousRestrictionReservedShovelsLoopholes
Book:A Sand County Almanac
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“Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?”

MenMayCountryYoungGladSpotsFortyWildernessMapsBlankPioneersBe YoungLand Conservation
Book:A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There
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“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.”

ThinkingLifeMayMeanStillsHardNightSongWaterNatureAnimalCenturyListeningThousandLowsEarsHarmonyPlantNotesRhythmHillsScoreLife And DeathSecondsPlants And AnimalsCampfire
Author:Aldo Leopold
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