“Wildflower corners are easy to maintain, but once gone, they are hard to rebuild.”
"Wildflower Corners" [1939]; Published in For the Health of the Land, J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle (eds.), 1999, p. 123.
1930s
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Aldo Leopold 130
American writer and scientist 1887–1948Related quotes
“Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter.”
Introduction to the "Corners on the Curving Sky" section of the book Soulscript (1970) compiled by Jordan. These lines have been widely published in verse format as work misattributed to Gwendolyn Brooks, usually as a poem titled "Corners on the Curving Sky." One website http://web.archive.org/20090809112040/www.geocities.com/juscurious/anon.html indicated that Brooks had publicly repudiated the attribution of these lines to her, but the misattribution seems to have long remained largely unrecognized.
Context: Our earth is round, and, among other things, that means that you and I can hold completely different points of view and both be right. The difference of our positions will show stars in your window I cannot even imagine. Your sky may burn with light, while mine, at the same moment, spreads beautiful to darkness. Still we must choose how we separately corner the circling universe of our experience. Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter. These poems speak to philosophy; they reveal the corners where we organize what we know.

“Success in life is to maintain this ecstasy, to burn always with this hard gemlike flame.”
Source: The Invention of Love

Serious Business http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/serious-business/
From the poems written in English

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 5, Reason And Genes, p. 145