Twenty centuries of 'progress' have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account, and a high opinion of himself, but not the capacity to live in high density without befouling and denuding his environment, nor a conviction that such capacity, rather than such density, is the true test of whether he is civilized.

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.

Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search and the chance of finding order and meaning in these events.

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.

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

No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal chage in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions.

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.