Aldo Leopold

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

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

The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.

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.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.

There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called sportsmanship.

To the mouse snow means freedom from want and fear. ... To a rough legged hawk a thaw means freedom from want and fear.

Conservation is a positive exercise of skill and insight not merely a negative exercise of abstinence and caution.

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

Recreational development is a job not of building roads into the lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.

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

A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing.

Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.

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

We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but to strive.

Conservation viewed in its entirety is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.

Six days shalt thou paddle and pack, but on the seventh thou shall wash thy socks.

What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on ones own 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.

Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient.

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.

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.

Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.

No hobby should either seek or need rational justification. To wish to do it is reason enough. To find reasons why it is useful or beneficial converts it at once from an avocation into an industry.

Land is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.

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.

Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.

A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken only by humans.