The Land Ethic

"“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.”

- The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac"

A Thing is Right

“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.”

Fountain of Energy

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

Commodity vs. Community

“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.” 

Wild Country to Be Young In

"“Man always kills the thing he loves. And so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in.”

- The Green Lagoons, A Sand County Almanac."

For One Species

"“For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.”

- On a Monument to the Pigeon, A Sand County Almanac"

Conservation

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

- Conservation Economics, The River of the Mother of God"

Science

"“The time has come for science to busy itself with the earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a sample of what we had to start with. That in a nutshell is the Arboretum.”

- The Arboretum and the University, The River of the Mother of God"

Standard of Living

"“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.”

- Foreword, A Sand County Almanac

No Mere Bird

"“When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.”

- Marshland Elegy, A Sand County Almanac"

Land Health

"“Land health is the capacity for self-renewal in the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise the land.”

- Conservation: In Whole or in Part? The River of the Mother of God"

A Blank Place on the Map

"“To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”

- Conservation Esthetic, A Sand County Almanac"

One's Own Land

"“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 one’s own land?”

- Writings: Unpublished Manuscripts, Aldo Leopold’s Desk File: Wildlife and game management"

Acts of Creation

"“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel.”

- Pines Above the Snow, A Sand County Almanac."

Our Tools

"“Our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides, but they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history, to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.”

- Engineering and Conservation, The River of the Mother of God."

The Old Wolf

"“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then and have known ever since that there was something new to me in those eyes, something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

- Thinking Like a Mountain, A Sand County Almanac"

Examine Each Question

"“Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. 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.”

- The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac"