Although there is a pressing need for individuals and businesses to act now limit the effects of environmental damage; famous intellectuals, world leaders and celebrities have long been known to articulate thier personal reflections on the environment. Below is a selection of quotes:
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“We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.”- Barbara Ward, Only One Earth, 1972. |
“Never, no never, did nature say one thing and wisdom say another.”- Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1797. |
| “The forest stretched no living man knew how far.”- Willa Cather (1873-1947), Shadows on the Rock, 1931. |
“Source Reduction is to garbage what preventive medicine is to health.”- William L. Rathje, Atlantic Monthly, December 1989. |
| “The weight of our civilization has become so great, it now ranks as a global force and a significant wild card in the human future along with the Ice Ages and other vicissitudes of a volatile and changeable planetary system”- Dianne Dumanoski, Rethinking Environmentalism, December 13, 1998. |
“Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away.”- Stephanie Mills ed., In Praise of Nature, 1990. |
| “Mountains are earth’s undecaying monuments.”- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), The Notch of the
White Mountains, 1868. |
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.”- H.G. Wells (1866-1946), Mind at the End of Its Tether, 1945 |
“Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option…they
will become a necessity.”- Fujio Cho, President of
Toyota Motors, North American International
Auto Show, 2004. |
“Nature provides exceptions to every rule.”- Margaret Fuller, The Dial, July 1843. |
| “Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes it water and nobody knows what that is.”- D.H. Lawrence, (1885-1930), Pansies, 1929. |
“We owe our lives to the sun… How is it, then, that we feel no gratitude?”- Lewis Thomas, Earth Ethics, Summer 1990. |
| “A city, like a living thing, is a united and continuous whole.”- Plutarch (approximately AD 50-120), Moralia. |
“The Law of conservation of energy tells us we can’t get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.”- Isaac Asimov from Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988. |
| “Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge.”- Thomas Edison |
“The Materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.”- Daniel Webster, (1782-1852) remarks in the US Senate, March 12, 1838. |
| “The Truly Healthy environment is not merely safe but stimulating.”- William H. Stewart, Environmental Science and Technology, February 1968. |
“Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs, –
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress
Its music.” - Percy Bysshe Shelley, (1792-1822), “To Jane, The Invitation,” c.1820 |
| “For many of us, water simply flows from a faucet, and we think little about it beyond this point of contact. We have lost a sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports.”- Sandra Postel, Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, 2003. |
“The Silence of a shut park does not sound like the country silence: it is tense and confirmed.”- Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973), The Death of the Heart. |
| “Let the river roll which way it will, cities will rise on its banks.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1803-1882) - Journals, 1988. |
“He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Essays, Second Series, 1844 |
| “A Healthy Ecology is the Basis for a Healthy Economy”-
Claudine Schneider, U.S. Representative in The Green Lifestyle Handbook. |
“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.”- Rachel Carson, (1907-1964) The Sea Around Us, 1951 |
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.”- Joyce Kilmer, (1886-1918),
“Trees” - 1914. |
“You cannot affirm the power plant and condemn the smokestack, or affirm the smoke and condemn the cough”- Wendell Berry, The Gift of the
Good
Land, 1981. |
“Nature never did betray
The Heart that Loved her.”- William Wordsworth, (1770-1850),
“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” - 1798. |
“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
- Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790), Poor Richard’s Almanac. |
| “One Touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Troilus and Cressida. |
“How Strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!”- Emily Dickinson, (1830-1886), Letter to Mrs. J.S. Cooper. |
| “The Wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit.” - Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970), Today and All Its Yesterdays, 1958. |
“We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us.”- Mary Daly, “Beyond God the Father” 1973. |
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead(1901-1978) quoted in John M. RIchardson, ed. Making it Happen, 1982 |
“Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.” - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) A Week on the
Concord and
Merrimack
Rivers, 1849 |
| “If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in Water.”- Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey, 1957. |
“The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.” -Elizabeth I of
England (1533-1603) |
| “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”- Mohandas K. Gandhiquoted in EF Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. |
“The air, the water and the ground are free gifts to man and no one has the power to portion them out in parcels. Man must drink and breathe and walk and therefore each man has a right to his share of each.” - James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851), The Prairie 1827 |
| “Let the clean air blow the cobwebs from your body. Air is medicine.”- Lillian Russell (1862-1922), quoted in Reader’s Digest, March 1922 |
“It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.”- Dalai Lama |
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.- - Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” 1926 |
“Water is the best of all things.” - Pindar (c. 522 BC - c. 438 BC), Olympian Odes |
