Quote

All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.

Aldo Leopold

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Aldo Leopold
Age: 60 †
Born: 1887
Born: January 1
Died: 1948
Died: January 1
Academic
Author
Botanical Collector
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Forestry Scientist
Naturalist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Burlington
Iowa
Aldo Starker Leopold
Rand Aldo Leopold
Seen
Left
Self
Fondle
Enough
Defeating
Must
Wildness
Conservation
Cherish
Wilderness

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Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.
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An oak is no respecter of persons.
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Mechanized recreation already has seized nine-tenths of the woods and mountains a decent respect for minorities should dedicate the other tenth to wilderness.
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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.
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A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken only by humans.
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Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.
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There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why.
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To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul - hope you like what you see.
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Wildflower corners are easy to maintain, but once gone, they are hard to rebuild.
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Hemispheric solidarity is new among statesmen, but not among the feathered navies of the sky.
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The landscape of any farm is the owner's portrait of himself.
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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.
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On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.
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Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.
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Teach the student to see the land, understand what he sees, and enjoy what he understands.
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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.
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The good life of any river may depend on the perception of its music and the preservation of some music to perceive.
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Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation's character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us.
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That the situation appears hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.
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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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