“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.”

“A land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member …”

— Aldo Leopold, 'The Land Ethic'

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic …”

— Aldo Leopold, 'The Land Ethic'

“Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of …”

— Aldo Leopold, 'A Sand County Almanac'

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

— Aldo Leopold, 'The Land Ethic'

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”

— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949) — from an unused 1947 draft foreword

“That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected …”

— Aldo Leopold, 'The Land Ethic'