Quote

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.

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
Whatever
Provided
Dividends
History
Streams
Signatures
Ails
Social
Forests
Youngsters
Rosters
Money
Send
Stigma
Roster
Place
Possession
Farm
Wrecked
Government
Merely
Stream
Polluted
Children
College
Farms
Suffice
Made
Land
Forest
Signature

More quotes by Aldo Leopold

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It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value I mean value in the philosophical sense.
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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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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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The drama of the sky dance is enacted nightly on hundreds of farms, the owners of which sigh for entertainment, but harbor the illusion that it is to be sought in theaters. They live on the land, but not by the land.
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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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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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A profession is a body of men who voluntarily measure their work by a higher standard than their clients demand. To be professionally acceptable, a policy must be sound as well as salable. Wildlife administration, in this respect, is not yet a profession.
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If we lose our wilderness, we have nothing left worth fighting for.
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At first blush I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant.
Aldo Leopold
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Education, I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another.
Aldo Leopold
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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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The landscape of any farm is the owner's portrait of himself.
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No farmer-sportsman group is stronger than the ties of mutual confidence and enthusiasm which bind its members.
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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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The road to conservation is paved with good intentions that often prove futile, or even dangerous, due to a lack of understanding of either land or economic land use.
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Conservation is a positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence and caution.
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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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In that year [1865] John Muir offered to buy from his brother ... a sanctuary for the wildflowers that had gladdened his youth. His brother declined to part with the land, but he could not suppress the idea: 1865 still stands in Wisconsin history as the birth-year of mercy for things natural, wild, and free.
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The rich diversity of the world's cultures reflects a corresponding diversity in the wilds that gave them birth.
Aldo Leopold
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Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.
Aldo Leopold