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
There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than _x000D_ one rooted in pavements.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A society that is closely connected to nature is more resilient and stable than one that is purely urban and artificial.
Aldo Leopold suggests that communities deeply connected to the natural environment are more durable and secure compared to those that are primarily based in urban settings. This connection to the land fosters a sense of belonging and stability that is often lost in city life, leading to a more harmonious existence with the ecosystem.
Themes
SocietyNatureStabilityUrbanConnectionLand
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community development, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of green spaces.
More from Aldo Leopold
All quotes βWe 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
There is an urgent need to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, dramatically reduce wasted energy, and significantly shift our power supplies from oil, coal, and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources.
Bill MckibbenRead
Of all the unexpected qualities of an unexpected universe, the sheer organizing power of animal and plant metabolism is one of the most remarkable. . . . Where it reaches its highest development, in the human mind, we forget it completely. . . . So important does nature regard this unseen combustion . . . that a starving man's brain will be protected to the last while his body is steadily consumed.
Loren EiseleyRead
[...] endless action and reaction. Those beautifully rounded pebbles which you gather on the sand and which you hold in your hand and marvel at their exceeding smoothness, were chiseled into their varies and graceful forms by the ceaseless action of countless waves. Nature is herself a great worker and never tolerates, without certain rebuke, any contradiction to her wise example. Inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death.
Frederick DouglassRead
The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. Itβs as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California.
John SteinbeckRead
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.
Albert EinsteinRead
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.
Matsuo BashoRead