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Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold Quotes

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Famous Aldo Leopold Quotes

“Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility. The shallow-minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important; it is such who prate of empires, political or economic, that will last a thousand years. It is only the scholar who appreciates that all history consists of successive excursions from a single starting-point, to which man returns again and again to organize yet another search for a durable scale of values. It is only the scholar who understands why the raw wilderness gives definition and meaning to the human enterprise.”

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Author:Aldo Leopold
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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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“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.”

StillsImportantFacesOpportunityNatureNaturalTakenProgressTelevisionWindHigherCostStandardsGrantedSunsetMinoritiesConservationGeeseStandards Of LivingTaken For GrantedWild And FreeWild ThingsHigher StandardsLand Conservation
Book:A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
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“High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks, and cries that almost shakes the bog with its nearness ... A new day has begun on the crane marsh. A sense of time lies thick and heavy on such a place ... 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.”

ArtBeautifulLyingValuesLanguageNatureAbilitySilenceQualityStageCryLowsHeavyPerceiveShakesThickHornsNew DayTrumpetsMarshesCranesBogsPandemonium
Author:Aldo Leopold
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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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“Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of [Passenger] pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring?”

WellsHeartNatureIndustryComfortSpringGloryAddStriveGrievingNot SureFedsGrandfatherDeprivedPassengersPigeonsGadgets
Author:Aldo Leopold
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“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism.”

HandsHateGamesLeftWaterNatureLandMinesWasteHarmonyForestsRangeCherishFarmsOrganismsPredatorLand ConservationThe Love Of The Game
Book:Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)
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“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.”

NatureCommunityNaturalEnvironmentLandRespectAbuseRegardGreenEnvironmentalPreservesWildernessBelongingSustainabilityPollutionEcologyCommodityConservationPreservationOur EnvironmentWildlifeOur CommunityMother EarthNatural EnvironmentNature And EnvironmentSave Mother EarthEarth And NatureNature ConservationGreen LivingWildlife ConservationEco FriendlyConservingInspiring NatureEnvironmental PollutionInspirational EnvironmentalEnergy ConservationGo GreenLand ConservationWhere You BelongEnvironmental SustainabilityWildlife And NatureConserving EnvironmentDeep EcologyProtect NatureCommunity LivingCommunity Garden
Book:A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
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“There are idle spots on every farm, and every highway is bordered by an idle strip as long as it is; keep cow, plow, and mower out of these idle spots, and the full native flora, plus dozens of interesting stowaways from foreign parts, could be part of the normal environment of every citizen.”

LongNatureInterestingEnvironmentCitizensNormalSpotsNativePlusFarmsDozenCowsIdleHighwaysFloraMowers
Book:A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
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“If in a city we had six vacant lots available to the youngsters of a certain neighborhood for playing ball, it might be "development" to build houses on the first, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and even the fifth, but when we build houses on the last one, we forget what houses are for.”

IfsFirstsMightLastsCertainHouseNatureForgetCitiesDevelopmentSixThirdsBallsAvailableNeighborhoodFourthFifthYoungstersVacant
Book:Aldo Leopold's Southwest
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