“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.”

“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"

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We classify ourselves into vocations, each of which either wields some particular tool, or sells it, or repairs it, or …" by Aldo Leopold?
Aldo Leopold photo
Aldo Leopold 130
American writer and scientist 1887–1948

Related quotes

Neal Shusterman photo

“Tools are neither demonic nor divine. It’s all about who wields them.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnDivided

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo
Abraham Joshua Heschel photo
Barack Obama photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“Men have become the tools of their tools.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Peter F. Drucker photo

“The tool user, provided the tool is made well, need not, and indeed should not, know anything about the tool.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 2, p. 513

Immanuel Kant photo

“The evil effect of science upon men is principally this, that by far the greatest number of those who wish to display a knowledge of it accomplish no improvement at all of the understanding, but only a perversity of it, not to mention that it serves most of them as a tool of vanity.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 52
The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant (1904)

Marshall McLuhan photo

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Nyanaponika Thera photo
Dag Hammarskjöld photo

“They are our tools. We fashioned them. We use them. It is our responsibility to remedy any flaws there may be in them.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

"An International Administrative Service", From an Address to the International Law Association at McGill University, Montreal, 30 May, 1956. Wilder Foote (Ed.), The Servant of Peace, A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, The Bodley Head, London 1962, p. 116.
Context: Do we refer to the purposes of the Charter? They are expressions of universally shared ideals which cannot fail us, though we, alas, often fail them. Or do we think of the institutions of the United Nations? They are our tools. We fashioned them. We use them. It is our responsibility to remedy any flaws there may be in them.... This is a difficult lesson for both idealists and realists, though for different reasons. I suppose that, just as the first temptation of the realist is the illusion of cynicism, so the first temptation of the idealist is the illusion of Utopia.

Related topics