Nicholas Gonzalez > Nicholas's Quotes

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing - I went into politics. It's practically the same thing.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Weak emperors mean strong viceroys. ”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.”
― Aldo Leopold

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. 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.”
― Aldo Leopold

“We abuse land because we see 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.”
― Aldo Leopold

“To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
― Aldo Leopold, Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

“Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

“Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.”
― Aldo Leopold

“We shall never achieve harmony with the land, anymore than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve but to strive.”
― Aldo Leopold, Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

“All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?”
― Aldo Leopold

“Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“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, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

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

“The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

“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.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

“We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

“My favorite quote: The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”
― Aldo Leopold