Quotes About Responsibility

The evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual as well as emotional process.

We forest officers, who acquiesced in the extinguishment of the bear, knew a local rancher who had plowed up a dagger engraved with the name of one of Coronado´s captains. We spoke harshly of the Spaniards, who, in their zeal for gold and converts, had needlessly extinguished the native Indians. It did not occur to us that we, too, were the captains of an invasion too sure of its righteousness.

I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. He is no longer the only one to do so. 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.

Il Signore dà e il Signore toglie, ma Egli non è più il solo a farlo. Quando il nostro lontano antenato inventò la pala l'uomo fu in grado di dare: poteva piantare un albero; quando inventò l'ascia gli fu possibile togliere: poteva tagliarlo. Chi possiede della terra ha assunto, più o meno consapevolmente, le funzioni divine di creare e distruggere le piante.

Obligations have no meaning without conscience, and the problem we face is the extension of the social conscience from people to land.

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends to do otherwise.

Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.

Obligations have no meaning without conscience, and the problem we face is the extension of the social conscience from people to the land

One of the penalties of an ecological education, is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." Aldo Leopold (although I would personally strike out 'alone', thankfully)

Un'etica terrestre, modifica il ruolo dell'Homo Sapiens da conquistatore della terra a semplice membro e cittadino della sua comunità. Implica rispetto per altri membri e per la stessa comunità.

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction. If they know how to plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel.

It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.

Um dos castigos impostos por uma educação ecológica é viver solitariamente em um mundo ferido. Para um leigo, muitos dos danos causados à Terra são invisíveis. Um ecologista deve se embrutecer e fazer de conta que não tem nada a ver com as consequências da ciência, ou deve ser como um médico que vê marcas da morte em uma comunidade que acredita estar saudável e não quer ser convencida do contrário.

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal.

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

A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land.

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.

The business of a seer is to see; and if he involves himself in the kind of God-eclipsing activities which make seeing impossible, he betrays the trust which his fellows have tacitly placed in him.

The state or conditions into which you lead your wife will be the state or conditions in which you find yourself. You cannot lead your wife into happiness and not get there yourself.

Qué haré conmigo? Porque a Ti te debo lo que soy