Quote

There is yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus' slave-girls, is still property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.

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
Like
Economic
Plant
Obligations
Animal
Slave
Ethic
Grows
Relation
Strictly
Upon
Animals
Plants
Girl
Property
Dealing
Stills
Girls
Obligation
Still
Grow
Ethics
Odysseus
Men
Land
Privilege
Privileges

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Only the most uncritical minds are free from doubt.
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Your woodlot is, in fact, an historical document which faithfully records your personal philosophy.
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If in a city we had six vacant lots available to the youngsters of a certain neighborhood for playing ball, it might be development to build houses on the first, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and even the fifth, but when we build houses on the last one, we forget what houses are for.
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The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.
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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 landscape of any farm is the owner's portrait of himself.
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I do not imply that this philosophy of land was always clear to me. It is rather the end result of a life journey.
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He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance.
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Conservation viewed in its entirety, is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.
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Wilderness is a continuous stretch of country preserved in its natural state, open to lawful hunting and fishing, big enough to absorb a two weeks' pack trip, and kept devoid of roads, artificial trails, cottages, or other works of man.
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The life of every river sings its own song, but in most the song is long marred by the discords of misuse.
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Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.
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The first law of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts
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Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet one need only own a shovel.
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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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Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.
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We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness.
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We Americans, in most states at least, have not yet experienced a bear-less, eagle-less, cat- less, wolf-less woods. Germany strove for maximum yields of both timber and game and got neither.
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Agricultural science is largely a race between the emergence of new pests and the emergence of new techniques for their control.
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The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soil, waters, fauna, and flora, as well as people.
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