Quote

Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.

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
Mind
Development
Building
Jobs
Stills
Unlovely
Still
Recreational
Human
Receptivity
Humans
Roads
Country
Lovely

More quotes by Aldo Leopold

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In country, as in people, a plain exterior often conceals hidden riches, to perceive which requires much living in and with.
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The landscape of any farm is the owner's portrait of himself.
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Twenty centuries of 'progress' have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account, and a high opinion of himself, but not the capacity to live in high density without befouling and denuding his environment, nor a conviction that such capacity, rather than such density, is the true test of whether he is civilized.
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One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.
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Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.
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I know a painting so evanescent that it is seldom viewed at all except by some wandering deer. It is a river who wields the brush and it is the same river who before I can bring my friends to view his work erases it forever from human view. After that it exists only in my mind's eye.
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That the situation appears hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.
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. . . perhaps our grandsons, having never seen a wild river, will never miss the chance to set a canoe in singing waters . . . glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in.
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We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.
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Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.
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Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.
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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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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.
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The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.
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Wildlife administration, in this respect, is not yet a profession.
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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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Is it possible to preserve the element of Unknown Places in our national life? Is it practicable to do so, without undue loss in economic values? I say 'yes' to both questions. But we must act vigorously and quickly, before the remaining bits of wilderness have disappeared.
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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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Relegating conservation to government is like relegating virtue to the Sabbath. Turns over to professionals what should be daily work of amateurs .
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It is, by common consent, a good thing for people to get back to nature.
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