Quote

The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills. They represented complete freedom to make mistakes. The wilderness gave those rewards and penalties, for wise and foolish acts against which civilization has built a thousand buffers.

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
Gave
Wilderness
Civilization
Acts
Built
Foolish
Simplicities
Thousand
Simplicity
Thrills
Wise
Rewards
Elemental
Mistake
Complete
Elementals
Freedom
Mistakes
Represented
Make
Travel
Penalties

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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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Too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run.
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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.
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The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?
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There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called sportsmanship.
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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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For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
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An Ecologist lives in a world of wounds.
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Teach the student to see the land, understand what he sees, and enjoy what he understands.
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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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The sweetest hunts are stolen. To steal a hunt, either go far into the wilderness where no one has been, or else find some undiscovered place under everybody's nose
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Man brings all things to the test of himself, and this is notably true of lightning.
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Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search and the chance of finding order and meaning in these events.
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There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.
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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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Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them
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Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization. Wilderness was never a homogenous raw material. It was very diverse. The differences in the product are known as cultures. The rich diversity of the worlds cultures reflects a corresponding diversity. In the wilds that gave them birth.
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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.
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It is part of wisdom never to revisit a wilderness, for the more golden the lily, the more certain that someone has gilded it
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In farm country, the plover has only two real enemies: the gully and the drainage ditch. Perhaps we shall one day find that these are our enemies, too.
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