Conservation viewed in its entirety, is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land. Aldo Leopold More Quotes by Aldo Leopold More Quotes From Aldo Leopold Science contributes moral as well as material blessings to the world. Its great moral contribution is objectivity, or the scientific point of view. This means doubting everything except facts; it means hewing to the facts, let the chips fall where they may. Aldo Leopold blessing mean fall Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one. Aldo Leopold example tree needs Every region should retain representative samples of its original or wilderness condition, to serve science as a sample of normality. Just as doctors must study healthy people to understand disease, so must the land sciences study the wilderness to understand disorders of the land-mechanism. Aldo Leopold doctors land people What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land? Aldo Leopold pieces land practice Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Aldo Leopold renewal land self Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow... the creation of new wilderness in the full sense of the word is impossible. Aldo Leopold wilderness creation impossible The life of every river sings its own song, but in most the song is long marred by the discords of misuse. Aldo Leopold rivers song long 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. Aldo Leopold anniversary nature spring 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. Aldo Leopold sky wings new-day Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry. Aldo Leopold support men civilization The good life of any river may depend on the perception of its music; and the preservation of some music to perceive. Aldo Leopold good-life perception rivers The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soil, waters, fauna, and flora, as well as people. Aldo Leopold practice spring integrity The richest values of wilderness lie not in the days of Daniel Boone, nor even in the present, but rather in the future. Aldo Leopold wilderness values lying What avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map? Aldo Leopold blank wilderness maps How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook! Aldo Leopold hunting fishing wind For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. Aldo Leopold mourn species sun The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering. Aldo Leopold ignorance animal men Wilderness is the very stuff America is made of. Aldo Leopold wilderness stuff america He who hopes for spring with upturned eye never sees so small a thing as Draba. He who despairs of spring with downcast eye steps on it, unknowing. He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance. Aldo Leopold despair eye spring Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map? Aldo Leopold pioneers men country
