297 Quotes by Aldo Leopold

Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth?

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them.

If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

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.

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

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

The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on... A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.

Relegating grizzlies to Alaska is about like relegating happiness heaven one may never get there.