Quotes from Great Conservationists

I will appreciate the names of any other quotable conservationalists a great deal.

"Land is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals." ~ Aldo Leopold

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

"The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left." ~ Aldo Leopold

"There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." ~ Aldo Leopold

"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." ~ Aldo Leopold

"He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Land health is the capacity for self-renewal in the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise the land." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Your woodlot is, in fact, an historical document which faithfully records your personal philosophy." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt." ~ John Muir

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." ~ John Muir

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." ~ John Muir

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." ~ John Muir

"The radiance in some places is so great as to be fairly dazzling... every crystal, every flower a window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the Creator." ~ John Muir

"In this silent, serene wilderness the weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace." ~ John Muir

"In the eternal youth of Nature, you may renew your own." ~ John Muir

"These beautiful days ... do not exist as mere pictures - maps hung upon the walls of memory to brighten at times when touched by association or will ... They saturate themselves into every part of the body and live always." ~ John Muir

"It may not be easy, life isn't easy, but dreams keep you alive." ~ John Muir

"Small is not beautiful unless small is skilled and dedicated." ~ Gene Logsdon

"The ultimate goal of gardening is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"We must find our way back to true nature. We must set ourselves to the task of revitalizing the earth. Regreening the earth, sowing seeds in the desert--that is the path society must follow." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"The greening of the desert means sowing seeds in people's hearts and creating a green paradise of peace on earth." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Ignorance, hatred and greed are killing nature." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation...o f human beings!" ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple." ~ Bill Mollison

"You don’t have an insect problem, you have a bird deficiency." ~ Bill Mollison

"The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children." ~ Bill Mollison

"Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively." ~ Bill Mollison 

"I confess to a rare problem - gynekinetophobia, or the fear of women falling on me - but this is a rather mild illness compared with many affluent suburbanites, who have developed an almost total zoophobia, or fear of anything that moves. It is, as any traveller can confirm, a complaint best developed in the affluent North American, and it seems to be part of blue toilet dyes, air fresheners, lots of paper tissues, and two showers a day." ~ Bill Mollison

“I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly. Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape. Because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing what they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion. Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed, or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility, and endless patience." ~ Robert Traver 

"There is but one kind of love; God is love, and all his creatures derive theirs from his; only it is modified by the different degrees of intelligence in different beings and creatures." ~ John James Audubon

"Great men show politeness in a particular way; a smile suffices to assure you that you are welcome, and keep about their avocations as if you were a member of the family." ~ John James Audubon

"The nature of the place...whether high or low, moist or dry, whether sloping north or south, or bearing tall trees or low shrubs...generally gives hint as to its inhabitants." ~ John James Audubon

"The fact is I am growing old too fast, alas! I feel it, and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to see the last plate of my mammoth work finished." ~ John James Audubon

"Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Do Something Now. If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?" ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Show me a man who makes no mistakes, and I will show you a man who doesn't do things." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"He who makes no mistakes makes no progress." ~ Theodore Roosevelt