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
Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Understanding nature leads to a respectful and beneficial relationship with the environment.
Aldo Leopold emphasizes the importance of learning from and understanding the natural world. When we become attuned to the nuances of the land, we foster a connection that not only reduces our fear of it but also opens up avenues for positive experiences and interactions with nature.
Themes
NatureLandRespectUnderstandingEnvironment
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, you could use this quote to highlight the relationship between humans and nature.
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
Similar quotes
We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness. True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources. In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives. The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.
Wendell BerryRead
Agriculture changes the landscape more than anything else we do. It alters the composition of species. We don't realize it when we sit down to eat, but that is our most profound engagement with the rest of nature.
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Some global hazards are insidious. They stem from pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. And they will be aggravated as the population rises to a projected nine billion by mid-century, and by the effects of climate change. An 'ecological shock' could irreversibly degrade our environment.
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A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time.
MenciusRead
In the other gardens_x000D_ _x000D_ And all up the vale,_x000D_ _x000D_ From the autumn bonfies_x000D_ _x000D_ See the smoke trail!_x000D_ _x000D_ Pleasant summer over_x000D_ _x000D_ And all the summer flowers,_x000D_ _x000D_ The red fire blazes,_x000D_ _x000D_ the grey smoke towers._x000D_ _x000D_ Sing a song of seasons!_x000D_ _x000D_ Something bright in all,_x000D_ _x000D_ Flowers in the summer_x000D_ _x000D_ Fires in the fall!
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon; of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.
Amos Bronson AlcottRead