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Individual thinkers since the days of Ezekiel and Isaiah have asserted that the despoliation of land is not only inexpedient but wrong. Society, however, has not yet affirmed their belief.

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
Society
Thinkers
Individual
Thinker
However
Land
Inexpedient
Days
Ezekiel
Since
Isaiah
Belief
Affirmed
Wrong
Asserted

More quotes by Aldo Leopold

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Man brings all things to the test of himself, and this is notably true of lightning.
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To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.
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O, God assist our side: at least, avoid assisting the enemy and leave the rest to me
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The art of land doctoring is being practiced with vigor, but the science of land health is yet to be born.
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Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty.
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Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.
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The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism.
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Our children are our signature to the roster of history our land is merely the place our money was made. There is as yet no social stigma in the possession of a gullied farm, a wrecked forest, or a polluted stream, provided the dividends suffice to send the youngsters to college. Whatever ails the land, the government will fix it.
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Never did we plan the morrow, for we had learned that in the wilderness some new and irresistible distraction is sure to turn up each day before breakfast. Like the river, we were free to wander.
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Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal.
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A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of his land.
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Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing.
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Land health is the capacity for self-renewal in the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise the land.
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I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades.
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There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.
Aldo Leopold
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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.
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There is, as yet, no sense of pride in the husbandry of wild plants and animals, no sense of shame in the proprietorship of a sick landscape. We tilt windmills in behalf of conservation in convention halls and editorial offices, but on the back forty we disclaim even owning a lance.
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Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education.
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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.
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That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.
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