Aldo Leopold

Natural History American 1887 – 1948 97 quotes

Author of A Sand County Almanac who advocated a land ethic, declaring that a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity of the biotic community.

Quotes by Aldo Leopold

The land is a poem, and we are its words.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a dream, and we are its dreamers.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a mystery, and we are its seekers.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a gift, and we are its guardians.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a trust, and we are its trustees.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a heritage, and we are its inheritors.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a legacy, and we are its beneficiaries.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a responsibility, and we are its stewards.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a challenge, and we are its answer.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The land is a hope, and we are its future.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone, a lot anyhow.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the civilization he inhabits.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this limitation by changing agents rather than identities.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

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

A Sand County Almanac 1949

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

A Sand County Almanac 1949

The first right of every animal is to be cared for.

Game Management 1933

The problem of wildlife conservation is not one of acquiring more land, but of keeping what we have properly managed.

Game Management 1933

I am glad I shall not be young in a future without wilderness.

A Sand County Almanac 1949

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.

A Sand County Almanac 1949