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Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold Quotes

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Famous Aldo Leopold Quotes

“The government tells us we need flood control and comes to straighten the creek in our pasture. The engineer on the job tells us the creek is now able to carry off more flood water, but in the process we have lost our old willows where the owl hooted on a winter night and under which the cows switched flies in the noon shade. We lost the little marshy spot where our fringed gentians bloomed.”

NeedsLittlesGovernmentAbleJobsNightLostProcessWaterEnvironmentalWinterSpotsShadeCowsEngineersFloodOur PastNoonOwlPasturesCreeksWinter Night
Book:Round River
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“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.”

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Book:A Sand County almanac: With other essays on conservation from Round River
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“This whole effort to rebuild and stabilize a countryside is not without its disappointments and mistakes... What matter though these temporary growing pains when one can cast his eye upon the hills and see hard-boiled farmers who have spent their lives destroying land now carrying water by hand to their new plantations”

MatterHardWholeHandsEyePainWaterEffortMistakeGrowingLandCastsDisappointmentHillsHis EyesTemporaryFarmersDestroyingWhat MattersCountrysidePlantationsGrowing Pains
Book:For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays And Other Writings
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“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.”

IndividualWaterCommunityAnimalLandMembersEthicsPlantBoundariesSoilPremisesInterdependencePlants And Animals
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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“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.”

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Author:Aldo Leopold
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“My favorite quote: The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”

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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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