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Quote by Aldo Leopold

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A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There

A seminal work in environmental literature, this book offers a blend of personal anecdotes, natural observations, and philosophical musings, emphasizing the importance of preserving natural landscapes and ecosystems. more

Author

Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold was an American author, philosopher, conservationist, and environmentalist. He is best known for his book 'A Sand County Almanac', which is considered a foundational text in environmental ethics and wildlife management. Leopold was born on January 11, 1887, and passed away on April 21, 1948. more

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“If education really educates, there will, in time, be more and more citizens who understand that relics of the old West add meaning and value to the new. Youth yet unborn will pole up the Missouri with Lewis and Clark, or climb the Sierras with James Capen Adams, and each generation in turn will ask: Where is the big white bear? It will be a sorry answer to say he went under while conservationists weren't looking.”

“Ideas, like men, can become dictators. We Americans have so far escaped regimentation by our rulers, but have we escaped regimentation by our own ideas? I doubt if there exists today a more complete regimentation of the human mind than that accomplished by our self-imposed doctrine of ruthless utilitarianism.”

“Every region should retain representative samples of its original or wilderness condition, to serve science as a sample of normality. Just as doctors must study healthy people to understand disease, so must the land sciences study the wilderness to understand disorders of the land-mechanism.”

“How would you like to have a thousand brilliantly colored cliff swallows keeping house in the eaves of your barn, and gobbling up insects over your farm at the rate of 100,000 per day? There are many Wisconsin farmsteads where such a swallow-show is a distinct possibility.”

“Barring love and war, few enterprises are undertaken with such abandon, or by such diverse individuals, or with so paradoxical a mixture of appetite and altruism, as that group of avocations known as outdoor recreation. It is, by common consent, a good thing for people to get back to nature. But wherein lies the goodness, and what can be done to encourage its pursuit?”