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Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold Quotes

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Famous Aldo Leopold Quotes

“Hydrologists have demonstrated that the meanderings of a creek are a necessary part of the hydrologic functioning. The flood plain belongs to the river. The ecologist sees clearly that for similar reasons we can get along with less channel improvement on Round River.”

ReasonWaterRiversEnvironmentalRoundsImprovementFloodCreeks
Book:A Sand County almanac: With other essays on conservation from Round River
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“To those who know the speech of hills and rivers straightening a stream is like shipping vagrants—a very successful method of passing trouble from one place to the next. It solves nothing in any collective sense.”

KnowsNextSuccessfulTroubleSpeechRiversMethodSolvePassingPassingsHillsStreamsCollectivesShippingVagrants
Book:The River of the Mother of God: and other Essays by Aldo Leopold
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“We realize the indivisibility of the earth - its soil, mountains, rivers, forests, climate, plants, and animals - and respect it collectively not only as a useful servant but as a living being, vastly less alive than ourselves in degree, but vastly greater than ourselves in time and space - a being that was old when the morning stars sang together, and when the last of us has been gathered unto his fathers, will still be young.”

Has BeensStillsEarthTogetherLastsYoungFatherStarsRealizingSpaceAnimalMorningGreaterMountainRiversPlantClimateEnvironmentalForestsServantSoilTime And SpaceBe YoungPlants And Animals
Author:Aldo Leopold
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“Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue. A false front of exclusively economic determinism is so habitual to Americans in discussing public questions that one must speak in the language of compound interest to get a hearing.”

ProblemSpeakLanguageInterestIssuesEconomicLandFrontsRiversEnvironmentalHearingConservationCompoundsDiscussingHabitualDeterminismEconomic IssuesCompound Interest
Book:Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)
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“We console ourselves with the comfortable fallacy that a single museum piece will do, ignoring the clear dictum of history that a species must be saved in many places if it is to be saved at all.”

IfsClearPiecesComfortableRiversSpeciesEnvironmentalSavedMuseumsFallacyConsole
Book:Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)
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“I know a painting so evanescent that it is seldom viewed at all except by some wandering deer. It is a river who wields the brush and it is the same river who before I can bring my friends to view his work erases it forever from human view. After that it exists only in my mind's eye.”

KnowsMindHumansI CanEyeViewsForeverPaintingMy FriendsRiversWanderBrushesEraseDeer
Book:A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
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