25 Best Gifford Pinchot Quotes from The Father of American Forestry

Gifford Pinchot born on August 11, 1865 was a pioneering American forester and public official.

After studying forestry in Europe, he initiated the first systematic forestry work in the U.S. at George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate in 1892.

He was part of the National Forest Commission in 1896 and by 1898, became chief of the Division, later Bureau, of Forestry and the Forest Service, established in 1905.

He held this position under Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft until 1910, contributing greatly to the conservation movement.

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Pinchot also served on the Public Lands Commission and the Inland Waterways Commission, becoming chairman of the National Conservation Commission in 1908.

He founded Yale’s School of Forestry and became a professor of forestry there. As Pennsylvania’s state forester in 1920, he administered the state’s forest areas. He

co-founded the Bull Moose Party in 1912 and served as Pennsylvania’s governor twice, notably arbitrating a coal strike in 1923.

Gifford Pinchot is known as “The Father of American Forestry.”

Let’s check out some of the top quotes by Gifford Pinchot below.


Best Gifford Pinchot Quotes

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If you aren’t getting flak, you aren’t over the target. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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Innovation never happens as planned. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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Learning is the gradual replacement of fantasy with fact. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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The earth and its resources belong of right to its people. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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The outgrowth of conservation, the inevitable result, is national efficiency. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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Conservation is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

Where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question shall always be answered from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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It is a greater thing to be a good citizen than to be a good Republican or a good Democrat. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

The purpose of conservation: The greatest good to the greatest number of people for the longest time. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

We are in the habit of speaking of the solid earth and the eternal hills as though they, at least, were free from the vicissitudes of time and certain to furnish perpetual support for prosperous human life. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

Top Gifford Pinchot Quotes

The goal of coaching is not in fixing what is broken, but in discovering new talents and new ways to use old talents that lead to far greater effectiveness. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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In the old world that is passing, in the new world that is coming, national efficiency has been and will be a controlling factor in national safety and welfare. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

By exposing yourself to risk, you’re exposing yourself to heavy-duty learning, which gets you on all levels. It becomes a very emotional experience as well as an intellectual experience. Each time you make a mistake, you’re learning from the school of hard knocks, which is the best education available. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

The American Colossus was fiercely intent on appropriating and exploiting the riches of all continents – grasping with both hands, reaping where he had not sown, wasting what he thought would last forever. New railroads were opening new territory. The exploiters were pushing farther and farther into the wilderness. The man who could get his hands on the biggest slice of natural resources was the best citizen. Wealth and virtue were supposed to trot in double harness. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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Conservation means the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of men. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for those realities. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

The object of our forest policy is not to preserve the forests because they are beautiful-or because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness-but the making of prosperous homes-every other consideration becomes secondary. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

Famous Gifford Pinchot Quotes

The lumbermen…regarded forest devastation as normal and second growth as a delusion of fools….And as for sustained yield, no such idea had ever entered their heads. The few friends the forest had were spoken of, when they were spoken of at all, as impractical theorists, fanatics, or “denudatics,” more or less touched in the head. What talk there was about forest protection was no more to the average American that the buzzing of a mosquito, and just about as irritating. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

I had no more conception of what it meant to be a forester than the man in the moon….But at least a forester worked in the woods and with the woods – and I loved the woods and everything about them….My Father’s suggestion settled the question in favor of forestry. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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I have been governor every now and then, but I am a forester all the time. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

I ran into the gigantic and gigantically wasteful lumbering of great Sequoias, many of whose trunks were so huge they had to be blown apart before they could be handled. I resented then, and I still resent, the practice of making vine stakes hardly bigger than walking sticks out of these greatest of living things. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

World-wide practice of Conservation and the fair and continued access by all nations to the resources they need are the two indispensable foundations of continuous plenty and of permanent peace. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

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A vision is not a vision unless it says yes to some ideas and no to others, inspires people and is a reason to get out of bed in the morning and come to work. ~ Gifford Pinchot.

Without natural resources life itself is impossible. From birth to death, natural resources, transformed for human use, feed, clothe, shelter, and transport us. Upon them we depend for every material necessity, comfort, convenience, and protection in our lives. Without abundant resources prosperity is out of reach. ~ Gifford Pinchot.


So these were the 25 top Gifford Pinchot quotes and sayings.

If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Stefon Diggs quotes and Errol Flynn quotes.

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Chandan Negi
Chandan Negi

I’m the Founder of Internet Pillar - I love sharing quotes and motivational content to inspire and motivate people - #quotes #motivation #internetpillar