Aldo Leopold Quotes

Aldo Leopold was an American author, philosopher, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold more than two million copies.

Leopold was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. His ethics of nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental movement, with his ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. He emphasized biodiversity and ecology and was a founder of the science of wildlife management.



Wikipedia  

✵ 11. January 1887 – 21. April 1948   •   Other names آلدو لئوپولد, ალდო ლეოპოლდი
Aldo Leopold photo

Works

Aldo Leopold: 130   quotes 32   likes

Famous Aldo Leopold Quotes

“We abuse land because we see 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.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Foreword, p. viii.
Context: Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. 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. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the aesthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture.

“Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.”

"A Man's Leisure Time," 1920; Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 8.
1920s
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills not only because of their novelty, but because they represented complete freedom to make mistakes. … Perhaps every youth needs an occasional wilderness trip, in order to learn the meaning of this particular freedom.”

“Wisconsin: Flambeau”, p. 113.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"

“All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.”

“Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy”, p. 101.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: To build a road is so much simpler than to think of what the country really needs. A roadless marsh is seemingly as worthless to the alphabetical conservationist as an undrained one was to the empire-builders. Solitude, the one natural resource still undowered of alphabets, is so far recognized as valuable only by ornithologists and cranes.
Thus always does history, whether of marsh or market place, end in paradox. The ultimate value in these marshes is wildness, and the crane is wildness incarnate. But all conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.

Aldo Leopold: Trending quotes

“Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wilderness", p. 188.

“It must be poor life that achieves freedom from fear.”

“Arizona and New Mexico: On Top”, p. 126.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Arizona and New Mexico: On Top," & "Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain"

Aldo Leopold Quotes

“To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Conservation Esthetic", p. 176.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: The trophy-recreationist has peculiarities that contribute in subtle ways to his own undoing. To enjoy he must possess, invade, appropriate. Hence the wilderness that he cannot personally see has no value to him. Hence the universal assumption that an unused hinterland is rendering no service to society. To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.

“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.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 224-225.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically 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.

“The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.”

“November: Axe-in-Hand”, p. 71.
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"

“Education, I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Manitoba: Clandeboye, p. 168.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“It is fortunate, perhaps, that no matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them.”

“April: Sky Dance”, p. 32-33.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "April: Come High Water," "April: Draba," "April: Bur Oak," & "April:Sky Dance"
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“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.”

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 145-146.
1930s
Context: Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. … 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; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism.

“What a dull world if we knew all about geese!”

“March: The Geese Return”, p. 20.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

“Only the most uncritical minds are free from doubt.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Conservation Esthetic", p. 165.

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”

“February: Good Oak”, p. 6.
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

“Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching — even when doing the wrong thing is legal.”

Presumably a paraphrase of "A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct" or of "Hunting for sport is an improvement ..." above.
Unlikely to be by Leopold, who knew that ethics involves not only doing the right thing, but also determining the right thing in the face of competing desirable criteria.
Misattributed

“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.”

"The Ecological Conscience" [1947]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 346.
1940s
Source: A Sand County Almanac
Context: The direction is clear, and the first step is to throw your weight around on matters of right and wrong in land-use. 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. That philosophy is dead in human relations, and its funeral in land-relations is overdue.

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

“March: The Geese Return”, p. 18.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

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

" The Round River: A Parable http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AldoLeopold/AldoLeopold-idx?type=turn&entity=AldoLeopold.ALDeskFile.p0655&id=AldoLeopold.ALDeskFile&isize=XL" (c. 1940-48); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 165.
1940s

“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.”

“November: Axe-in-Hand”, p. 68.
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"
Context: I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.

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

“March: The Geese Return”, p. 18.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

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

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 146-147.
1930s
Source: A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River
Context: The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciation how little we know about it. 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.

“Man brings all things to the test of himself, and this is notably true of lightning.”

“February: Good Oak”, p. 8.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

“Our new camp is on a windswept rock point. … We don't know what lake we're on, and don't care …”

"Canada, 1925"; Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 67.
1920s

“[This book] has done well to preserve this saga of how the state was made safe for cows. How the state is to be made safe from cows is a saga yet to be written.”

"Review of Meet Mr. Grizzly by Montague Stevens" [1944]; Published in Aldo Leopold's Southwest, David E. Brown and Neil B. Carmony (eds.) 1990, p. 220.
1940s

“To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear. … To a rough-legged hawk, a thaw means freedom from want and fear.”

“January: January Thaw”, p. 4.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

“Whoever invented the word ‘grace’ must have seen the wing-folding of the plover.”

“May: Back from the Argentine”, p. 34-35.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "May: Back from the Argentine," "June: The Alder Fork," "July: Great Possessions," and "July: Prairie Birthday"

“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! … Even so, I think there is some virtue in eagerness, whether its object prove true or false.”

“June: The Alder Fork”, p. 39.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "May: Back from the Argentine," "June: The Alder Fork," "July: Great Possessions," and "July: Prairie Birthday"

“If we lose our wilderness, we have nothing left, in my opinion, worth fighting for; or to be more exact, a completely industrialized United States is of no consequence to me.”

letter http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AldoLeopold/AldoLeopold-idx?type=turn&id=AldoLeopold.ALCorresAK&entity=AldoLeopold.ALCorresAK.p0597&isize=XL to Wallace Grange, 3 January 1948.
1940s

Similar authors

Herbert A. Simon photo
Herbert A. Simon 58
American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and p…
Martin Lewis Perl photo
Martin Lewis Perl 9
American scientist
Jerome Isaac Friedman photo
Jerome Isaac Friedman 6
American physicist
Frank Herbert photo
Frank Herbert 158
American writer
William Saroyan photo
William Saroyan 190
American writer
Ray Bradbury photo
Ray Bradbury 401
American writer
William Faulkner photo
William Faulkner 214
American writer
Isaac Asimov photo
Isaac Asimov 303
American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston Uni…
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar 29
Argentinian writer
David Foster Wallace photo
David Foster Wallace 185
American fiction writer and essayist