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“Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of [passenger] pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring?”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon”, p. 109.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"

“How would you like to have a thousand brilliantly colored cliff swallows keeping house in the eaves of your barn, and gobbling up insects over your farm at the rate of 100,000 per day? There are many Wisconsin farmsteads where such a swallow-show is a distinct possibility.”

Aldo Leopold

"Cliff Swallows to Order" [1944]; Published in For the Health of the Land, J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle (eds.), 1999, p. 119.
1940s

“We stand guard over works of art, but species representing the work of aeons are stolen from under our noses.”

Aldo Leopold

"Preface".
1930s, Game Management, 1933

“All history consists of successive excursions from a single starting-point, to which man returns again and again to organize yet another search for a durable scale of values.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wilderness", p. 200.

“For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Foreword, p. vii.

“A profession is a body of men who voluntarily measure their work by a higher standard than their clients demand. To be professionally acceptable, a policy must be sound as well as salable. Wildlife administration, in this respect, is not yet a profession.”

Aldo Leopold

"Chukaremia" [1938]; 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. 246.
1930s

“We classify ourselves into vocations, each of which either wields some particular tool, or sells it, or repairs it, or sharpens it, or dispenses advice on how to do so; by such division of labors we avoid responsibility for the misuse of any tool save our own. But there is one vocation — philosophy — which knows that all men, by what they think about and wish for, in effect wield all tools. It knows that men thus determine, by their manner of thinking and wishing, whether it is worthwhile to wield any.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“November: Axe-in-Hand”, p. 68.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"

“That biological jack-of-all-trades called ecologist tries to be and do all these things. Needless to say, he does not succeed.”

Aldo Leopold

" The Deer Swath http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AldoLeopold/AldoLeopold-idx?type=turn&entity=AldoLeopold.ALDeskFile.p0799&id=AldoLeopold.ALDeskFile&isize=L" [1948]; Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 127. <br class="br">1940s

“It can be stated as a sober fact that the iron-heel attitude has already reduced by half the ability of Wisconsin to support a cooperative community of men, animals, and plants during the next century. Moreover, it has saddled us with a repair bill, the magnitude of which we are just beginning to appreciate. If some foreign invader attempted such loot, the whole nation would resist to the last man and the last dollar. But as long as we loot ourselves, we charge the indignity to 'rugged individualism', and try to forget it.”

Aldo Leopold

"The Arboretum and the University" [1934]; 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. 210.
1930s

“Engineers did not discover insulation: they copied it from these old soldiers of the prairie war.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“April: Bur Oak”, p. 27.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "April: Come High Water," "April: Draba," "April: Bur Oak," & "April:Sky Dance"

“Bread and beauty grow best together. Their harmonious integration can make farming not only a business but an art; the land not only a food-factory but an instrument for self-expression, on which each can play music to his own choosing.”

Aldo Leopold

"The Conservation Ethic" [1933]; 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. 191.
1930s

“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.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Foreword, p. viii-ix.

“Patriotism requires less and less of making the eagle scream, but more and more of making him think.”

Aldo Leopold

"The Home Builder Conserves" [1928]; 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. 147.
1920s

“Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.”

Aldo Leopold

"Wherefore Wildlife Ecology?" [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. 337.
1940s

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

Aldo Leopold

Lecture notes ms. (c. 1935); as quoted in: Curt D. Meine, ‎Richard L. Knight (1999) The Essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries. p. 162.
1930s

“One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use. Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to continuance.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 210.

“[After describing a hopper for feeding winter game:] If you think you're too old to enjoy building such contraptions — that only Boy Scouts get a kick out of such nonsense — just try it. You may end up by building several.”

Aldo Leopold

radio talk http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AldoLeopold/AldoLeopold-idx?type=turn&id=AldoLeopold.ALYale&entity=AldoLeopold.ALYale.p0535&isize=XL "Feed Early to Keep Game at Home", 2 November 1933. <br class="br">1930s

“In that year [1865] John Muir offered to buy from his brother … a sanctuary for the wildflowers that had gladdened his youth. His brother declined to part with the land, but he could not suppress the idea: 1865 still stands in Wisconsin history as the birth-year of mercy for things natural, wild, and free.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“February: Good Oak”, p. 15-16.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"

“There are a few sections of uncut timber, luckily state-owned.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“Wisconsin: Flambeau”, p. 115.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"

“The drama of the sky dance is enacted nightly on hundreds of farms, the owners of which sigh for entertainment, but harbor the illusion that it is to be sought in theaters. They live on the land, but not by the land.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“April: Sky Dance”, p. 34.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "April: Come High Water," "April: Draba," "April: Bur Oak," & "April:Sky Dance"