aldo leopold

“ Man always kills the thing he loves. And so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. ”

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

“ A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land. Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our effort to understand and preserve this capacity. ”

“ Conservation is not merely a thing to be enshrined in outdoor museums, but a way of living on land. ”

“ Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals. ”

“ 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 soil, water, plants and animals, or collectively: the land. ”

“ Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow... creation of new wilderness in the full sense of the word is impossible. ”

“ Conservation is a state of harmony between man and land. ”

“ Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays. ”

“ It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense. ”