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.
Aldo LeopoldRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The way we treat land reflects our perception of it; if we see it as a shared community rather than a commodity, we'll treat it better.
Aldo Leopold emphasizes the relationship between humanity and the land, illustrating that the exploitation of the environment stems from viewing it merely as a property. When we shift our perspective to see land as a part of our community, it fosters a sense of responsibility and care, leading us to treat it with love and respect.
Themes
LandCommunityRespectNatureEnvironment
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of stewardship.
More from Aldo Leopold
All quotes →We Americans, in most states at least, have not yet experienced a bear-less, eagle-less, cat- less, wolf-less woods. Germany strove for maximum yields of both timber and game and got neither.
Aldo LeopoldRead
When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver: He could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker: He could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.
Aldo LeopoldRead
Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.
Aldo LeopoldRead
My dog does not care where heat comes from, but he cares that it comes, and soon. Indeed he considers my ability to make it come as something magical, for when I rise in the coal black pre-dawn and kneel by the hearth to make a fire, he pushes himself blandly between me and the kindling splits I have laid in the ashes, and I must touch a match to them by poking it between his legs. Such faith , I suppose, is the kind that moves mountains.
Aldo LeopoldRead
Individual thinkers since the days of Ezekiel and Isaiah have asserted that the despoliation of land is not only inexpedient but wrong. Society, however, has not yet affirmed their belief.
Aldo LeopoldRead
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That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
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We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
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