Quotes from Aldo Leopold

There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called sportsmanship.

The boundary between tame and wild exists only in the imperfections of the human mind.

The richest values of wilderness lie not in the days of Daniel Boone, nor even in the present, but rather in the future.

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. And ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

Harmony with the land is like harmony with a friend. You cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say you cannot have game and hate predators. The land is one organism.

Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow... the creation of new wilderness in the full sense of the word is impossible.

The art of land doctoring is being practiced with vigor, but the science of land health is yet to be born.

To keep every cog and every wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.

We face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.

A thing is right if it tends to preserve the stability, integrity, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong if it tends otherwise.

Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

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 that television.

We face the question whether a still higher standard of living is worth its costs in things natural, wild, and free.

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.

No matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all the salient facts about any one of them.

But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. . . . Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.

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.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators... The land is one organism.

On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

The good life of any river may depend on the perception of its music; and the preservation of some music to perceive.