Environment Quotes by Aldo Leopold

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

— Aldo Leopold

In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.

— Aldo Leopold

The first law of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts

— Aldo Leopold

Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.

— Aldo Leopold

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.

— Aldo Leopold

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them

— Aldo Leopold

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.

— Aldo Leopold

“That the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.”

— Aldo Leopold

...to any one for whom wild things are something more than a pleasant diversion, (conservation) constitutes one of the milestones in moral…

— Aldo Leopold

Relegating conservation to government is like relegating virtue to the Sabbath. Turns over to professionals what should be daily work of amateurs .

— Aldo Leopold

The road to conservation is paved with good intentions that often prove futile, or even dangerous, due to a lack of understanding…

— Aldo Leopold

A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the…

— Aldo Leopold

“That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an…

— Aldo Leopold

Conservation viewed in its entirety, is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.

— Aldo Leopold

What conservation education must build is an ethical underpinning for land economics and a universal curiosity to understand the land mechanism. Conservation…

— Aldo Leopold

A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken…

— Aldo Leopold

There is, as yet, no sense of pride in the husbandry of wild plants and animals, no sense of shame in the…

— Aldo Leopold

“Above all we should, in the century since Darwin, have come to know that man, while now captain of the adventuring ship,…

— Aldo Leopold

The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically…

— Aldo Leopold

Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue. A false front of exclusively economic…

— Aldo Leopold

Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as…

— Aldo Leopold

There are idle spots on every farm, and every highway is bordered by an idle strip as long as it is; keep…

— Aldo Leopold

The most important characteristic of an organism is that capacity for internal self-renewal known as health. There are two organisms whose processes…

— Aldo Leopold

I am asserting that those who love the wilderness should not be wholly deprived of it, that while the reduction of the…

— Aldo Leopold

One of the anomalies of modern ecology is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely aware of the existence…

— Aldo Leopold

“To build a road is so much simpler than to think of what the country really needs. A roadless marsh is seemingly…

— Aldo Leopold

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an…

— Aldo Leopold

“...it is disquieting to feel that the conversion into a National Forest or Park always means the esthetic death of a piece…

— Aldo Leopold

What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more…

— Aldo Leopold

A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the…

— Aldo Leopold

Conservation is a positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence and caution.

— Aldo Leopold

All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there…

— Aldo Leopold

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as…

— Aldo Leopold

We realize the indivisibility of the earth - its soil, mountains, rivers, forests, climate, plants, and animals - and respect it collectively…

— Aldo Leopold

Twenty centuries of 'progress' have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account, and a high…

— Aldo Leopold

A land ethic...reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health…

— Aldo Leopold

We realize the indivisibility of the earth-its soil, mountains, rivers, forests, climate, plants, and animals-and respect it collectively not only as a…

— Aldo Leopold