Quote

There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why.

Aldo Leopold

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Speculate
Done
Time

More quotes by Aldo Leopold

Image
What avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?
Aldo Leopold
Image
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.
Aldo Leopold
Image
If the land mechanism as a whole is good then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.
Aldo Leopold
Image
The rich diversity of the world's cultures reflects a corresponding diversity in the wilds that gave them birth.
Aldo Leopold
Image
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.
Aldo Leopold
Image
To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.
Aldo Leopold
Image
Agricultural science is largely a race between the emergence of new pests and the emergence of new techniques for their control.
Aldo Leopold
Image
No matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all the salient facts about any one of them.
Aldo Leopold
Image
If we lose our wilderness, we have nothing left worth fighting for.
Aldo Leopold
Image
When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver: He could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker: He could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.
Aldo Leopold
Image
That the situation appears hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.
Aldo Leopold
Image
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.
Aldo Leopold
Image
The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on.... A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.
Aldo Leopold
Image
Only the most uncritical minds are free from doubt.
Aldo Leopold
Image
The life of every river sings its own song, but in most the song is long marred by the discords of misuse.
Aldo Leopold
Image
Prudence never kindled a fire in the human mind I have no hope for conservation born of fear.
Aldo Leopold
Image
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.
Aldo Leopold
Image
I love all trees, but I am in love with pines.
Aldo Leopold
Image
Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.
Aldo Leopold
Image
Science contributes moral as well as material blessings to the world. Its great moral contribution is objectivity, or the scientific point of view. This means doubting everything except facts it means hewing to the facts, let the chips fall where they may.
Aldo Leopold