Public Land Quotes

#1. How a regulation so unjust in itself, so foreign to the authority of Congress, and so hurtful to the sale of public land, and smelling so strongly of an antiquated bigotry, could have received the countenance of a committee is truly a matter of astonishment.

James Madison

#2. This is nothing more than a public land grab for private profit. The BLM is literally giving this away to corporations ... This may be out in the desert today, but tomorrow it could be in your backyard ... Already over a dozen projects are proposed in San Diego and Imperial County.

Robert Scheid

#3. We must get out of the banged-up century, some said, out of this cheating, murderous century of riot and secret death, of scrabbling for public land and damn well getting them by any means.

John Steinbeck

#4. It is public land and we will do our best to provide recreational activities. We are looking at initially allowing kayak access, wade fishing, bicycle access and walking access on some of the interior roads.

John Wallace

#5. Land surveyors start as employees, and move up to partnership in a firm or to ownership of their own enterprise if they wish. Some wind up working for government, private corporations, or public enterprise.

Mark Mason

#6. Alaska did not produce supermen, but in its formative periods it was served by men of character and determination, and it is a fortunate land which knows such public servants.

James A. Michener

#7. If religious freedom is to endure in America, the responsibility for teaching religion to public school children must be left to the homes and churches of our land, where this responsibility rightfully belongs. It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system.

Sam Ervin

#8. Progressive taxes are inherently flawed in that they fund public services which are often location-dependent, thus adding to the value of owned land. Thus, any tax that pays for public services without obtaining revenue from resulting land value increases is fundamentally unjust.

Martin Adams

#9. If you can unify the public mind saving an iconic species like the tiger, like they did with the panda, that means you have to protect their habitat and everything that they hunt. And that means saving massive, thousands of acres for them to be able to roam and breed. So it's more of a land effort.

Leonardo DiCaprio

#10. A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.

Richard Rogers

#11. The whole land seems aroused to discussion on the province of woman, and I am glad of it. We are willing to bear the brunt of thestorm, if we can only be the means of making a break in that wall of public opinion which lies right in the way of woman's rights, true dignity, honor and usefulness.

Angelina Grimke

#12. I'm for the fracking. I think it's an opportunity for Ohio to really get a lot of jobs. But we have to do it right. We have to really take a deep breath, do it right, make sure the public is protected, make sure our land is protected.

Mike DeWine

#13. Let's pass more gun control laws and buy metal detectors for every public school in the land - anything but tell kids that life is sacred, because its Creator deems it so.

Don Feder

#14. Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue. A false front of exclusively economic determinism is so habitual to Americans in discussing public questions that one must speak in the language of compound interest to get a hearing.

Aldo Leopold

#15. I have been requesting the government because it is the government which has to allocate the land to build public courses. I am willing to meet the minister and discuss ways to make courses public and more accessible to the regular sports enthusiasts.

Jeev Milkha Singh

#16. After Land I wanted to continue exploring the theme but I needed a new challenge so turned to colour. I explored Bradford and produced a series of urban landscapes that I liked, but because Land had made such an impact on the general public my colour work wasn't reviewed.

Fay Godwin

#17. Increasingly the evidence suggests that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy.

Richard Louv

#18. What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit.

Michael Moorcock

#19. The language of the land in the Parthian empire was the native language of Iran. There is no trace pointing to any foreign language having ever been in public use under the Arsacids.

Theodor Mommsen

#20. The best measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it allocates the goods of the land, the public trust assets.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

#21. Because the public lands belong to all Americans, this 1872 Mining Act should be repealed ...

Richard M. Nixon

#22. Our public lands - whether a national park or monument, wildlife refuge, forest or prairie - make each one of us land-rich. It is our inheritance as citizens of a country called America.

Terry Tempest Williams

#23. One would expect that private property taken by eminent domain would become land available for public use such as parks and roads. Unfortunately, this decision creates a loophole for government to manipulate the definition of public use simply to generate greater tax revenue.

Jim Ryun

#24. Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.

Aldo Leopold

#25. True conservation provides for wise use by the general public. The American people do not want our resources preserved for the exclusive use of the wealthy. These land and water resources belong to the people, and people of all income levels should have easy access to them.

George Aiken

#26. A rancher is a farmer who farms the public lands with a herd of four-legged lawn mowers.

Edward Abbey

#27. There is no question that Israelis - indeed, all concerned Jews - have to continue to work out a Jewish public philosophy that truly justifies a Jewish state in the land of Israel.

David Novak

#28. The land-grant university system is being built on behalf of the people, who have invested in these public universities their hopes, their support, and their confidence.

Abraham Lincoln

#29. Throughout U.S. history, competent public investments have been an essential complement to private investments - from the Louisiana Purchase, to land-grant colleges, to the Interstate Highway System, to the Internet.

Felix Rohatyn

#30. America, the land of the free, is turning itself into the land of the free ride. [U.S. airlines] are operating in protected markets. They are hoovering up public funds and they still can't make a profit.

Rod Eddington

#31. I think private ownership is generally superior to public because you care about the land more and it doesn't get trashed.

John C. Malone

#32. [The public lands represent] in a sense, the breathing space of the nation.

Richard M. Nixon

#33. The silken rush of woodland waters and the scoured shapes of the desert - these and countless other treasures we owe to those farsighted enough to have preserved the public lands that make up our inheritance.

T. H. Watkins

#34. It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.

Ariel Sharon

#35. Doesn't private vice make a man unworthy of public office?" And now kindly Mrs. Albion looked at Mercy with genuine astonishment. "Well," she laughed, "if it did, there'd be no one to govern the land.

Edward Rutherfurd

#36. Well, first of all, I grew up in New York City, going to first a public school, then a private school, and when I got to the private school in Manhattan, I learned of what we called 'The Promised Land,' which are the Hamptons. I've always had an affinity for the Hamptons.

Mark Feuerstein

#37. It's important to know that, unlike lawyers, land surveyors put the public interest first. That means we're not biased by our client - this means that the property line will be drawn in the most equitable position, regardless of which neighbor is paying the bill.

Mark Mason

#38. Good stewardship of the environment is not just a personal responsibility, it is a public value ... Our duty is to use the land well, and sometimes not to use it at all. This is our responsibility as citizens, but more than that, it is our calling as stewards of the earth.

George W. Bush

#39. Today the children of our public schools are taught more of the history, heroes, legends, and sagas of the old world than of the land of their birth, while they are furnished with little material on the people and institutions that are truly American.

Luther Standing Bear

#40. The usual mixture of rooms and squares and streets that is the mark of the Land of the Dead. Streets lead into kitchens and bedrooms, so no area is completely private or completely public.

William S. Burroughs