“A gunner owes consideration to the birds and to the land itself. He usually does not own the deed, but in a strange way he possesses a grouse covert as he is possessed by it, holding special title to that particular corner of this earth, a carry-over from the age when man discovered wild land and made it his.”

— George Bird Evans

An Affair with Grouse (1982)

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

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George Bird Evans 30

American writer 1906–1998

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“The gunner tends to live with Death without giving thought to dying, the shot heard so deeply it is not heard at all. The gunner is the grouse while the grouse is living; he dies a little when the grouse is dead. They have that in common, the bird and he, and he had better know if he is worthy to terminate that glorious life. It is a responsibility not easy to face, yet he doesn't dare not face it.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

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“Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

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“We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten.”

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) Duwamish chief

Misattributed

“Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands part of the earth itself as a sign that this land will be the possession of you and your children forever.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

Gurindji Land Ceremony Speech http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/speeches/whitlam.htm, 16 August 1975

“Quality grouse shooting cannot be evaluated by numbers any more than diamonds can be measured by the pound. It is not a process but a reflection – a reflection in the gunner from the dog he shoots over and the gun he carries, and above all a feedback from the grouse. When these things happen well, looking back at end of day is to be as content as it is given a man to feel. It has been my past, it is my life and my hereafter, like these mountains endless in their splendor.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

An Affair with Grouse (1982)

“No man ought to be so absurd as to make a purchase without looking at the title deeds; if he is, he must take the consequence of his own negligence.”

William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge

Goodtitle v. Morgan (1787), 1 T. R. 762.

“He was a stranger in a strange land: lost in the cosmos, a man with neither compass nor guide, sitting in a tomb in Egypt surrounded by the dead, with Giles—a man his own age, but separated by class and sensibility and four hundred years—looking to him for answers.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 411

“Truly, this earth is a trophy cup for the industrious man. And this rightly so, in the service of natural selection. He who does not possess the force to secure his Lebensraum in this world, and, if necessary, to enlarge it, does not deserve to possess the necessities of life. He must step aside and allow stronger peoples to pass him by.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech to officer cadets at the Berlin Sportpalast, 18 December 1940. [Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932-1945 (English Volume III: 1939-1940), Domarus, Max, Max Domarus, Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1997, 2162, 0865166277]
1940s

“Where is Christ, the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights. A soldier does not build a house; he does not aspire to possession of lands; he does not concern himself with devious, coin-purveying trade. … The soldier enjoys a sustenance provided by the king; he need not furnish his own, nor vex himself in this regard.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Ascetical Works, p. 9

“[T]he wild lands of the country should be distributed so that every man should have the means and opportunity of benefitting his condition.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Gazette version

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George Bird Evans 30

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