Wangari Maathai Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition.

  Wangari Maathai

  Thinking, Competition, Management

  10 Copy quote

• For me planting a tree is a very doable thing. It's not complicated, it doesn't require technology, it doesn't require much knowledge, but it can be a very important entry point into communities understanding how they destroy their own resources, but how they can also restore those resources, and not wait for their government or international agencies to come and help them.

  Wangari Maathai

  Technology, Agency, Government

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  6 Copy quote

• For us who are now in power, we need to be challenged to serve the people and ignore our own egos and personal interests so that we can really demonstrate to other African states that it is possible to share power without going to war.

  Wangari Maathai

  War, People, Ego

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  13 Copy quote

• We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.

  Wangari Maathai

  Nature, Powerful, Government

  14 Copy quote

• We refuse to share resources; we govern irresponsibly. If we are confident, if we have some of our cultural values, then we would be more committed to assisting our people out of poverty and creating an environment that can make it possible for our friends to assist us.

  Wangari Maathai

  Creating, People, Would Be

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  11 Copy quote

• Because I was a woman, I was vulnerable. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman.'

  Wangari Maathai

  Vulnerable, Tradition, Easy

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  14 Copy quote

• I knew that I was not doing anything wrong, and I knew in my mind I was doing the right thing. I knew that the people who were going against me were not going against me for a good purpose. I knew that they were trying to justify their corruption and misgovernance.

  Wangari Maathai

  People, Mind, Trying

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  6 Copy quote

• It's very important to remain optimistic and to see the silver lining in everything you do. Because no matter how sometimes things look difficult, and look like there is no hope, there is always a small glimmering of silver lining that is in everything, and I always look for that, and hang on that, and before I know it, another day comes and is gone.

  Wangari Maathai

  Optimistic, Important, Looks

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  5 Copy quote

• The women of the Green Belt Movement have learned about the causes and the symptoms of environmental degradation. They have begun to appreciate that they, rather than their government, ought to be the custodians of the environment.

  Wangari Maathai

  Government, Appreciate, Environmental

  6 Copy quote

• I learned in America a long time ago, the three R's, the principle of three R's - reuse, reduce, recycle. And as I say those words, there are so many things individually we can do to reduce - we don't need to consume as much as we are consuming. Reduce. And by reusing, we can reuse a lot of things we just throw into the dumpsite. And reduce the production. The more we reuse, the more we can reduce.

  Wangari Maathai

  America, Long, Principles

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  6 Copy quote

• One of the reasons why I say we all need to work together to save the Congo forest, because if we don't save the Congo forest, the Amazon forest and the southeast Asia forest, if those forests release the carbon they are trapping at the moment, much of what you will be doing in the North will be negated by the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

  Wangari Maathai

  Atmosphere, Together, Asia

  Source: kenvironews.wordpress.com

  4 Copy quote

• That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree. And so I got an indigenous tree, called Nandi flame, it has this beautiful red flowers. When it is in flower it is like it is in flame.

  Wangari Maathai

  Beautiful, Flower, Flames

  "Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai: A Global Icon Of Conservation" by Korva Coleman, www.npr.org. September 26, 2011.

  10 Copy quote

• It would be good for us Africans to accept ourselves as we are and recapture some of the positive aspects of our culture.

  Wangari Maathai

  Would Be, Culture, Accepting

  "I Will Disappear Into the Forest". Interview with Dave Gilson, www.motherjones.com. January 5, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• The people are starving. They need food; they need medicine; they need education. They do not need a skyscraper to house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station.

  Wangari Maathai

  Party, Medicine, People

  "Wangari Maathai: 'You Strike The Woman...'". Priscilla Sears, "In Context" (journal), Volume 28, Spring 1991.

  4 Copy quote

• Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.

  Wangari Maathai

  Children, Waste, Wasting Time

  4 Copy quote

• We do the right thing not to please people but because it's the only logically reasonable thing to do, as long as we are being honest with ourselves - even if we are the only ones.

  Wangari Maathai

  Long, People, Honest

  7 Copy quote

• The planet needs trees. If there is indeed that carbon dioxide out there in the atmosphere, the only species on the planet that can actually trap it for us in a natural process of photosynthesis are the trees.

  Wangari Maathai

  Tree, Atmosphere, Needs

  Source: www.sbs.com.au

  47 Copy quote

• For the rains and the rivers you need forests and you need to make sure these your forests are all protected, that there is no logging, that there is no charcoal burning and all the activities that destroy the forest. All this really needs to be done so that you can be able to grow good coffee, so that you can have an income, so that you can send your children to school, so that you can buy medicine, so that you can take them to hospitals, so that you can care for the women, especially mothers.

  Wangari Maathai

  Mother, Children, Rain

  Source: kenvironews.wordpress.com

  7 Copy quote

• When these resources are degraded or polluted, then there are fewer of them for the rest of us, and then we start competing for them and eventually as we compete, there are those of us, who have the capacity, who have the ability to be the controllers, to decide who accesses them, how much they access, and eventually there is a conflict. Those who feel marginalized, those who feel excluded, eventually react in an effort to get their own justice, and we have conflict.

  Wangari Maathai

  Justice, Effort, Conflict

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  6 Copy quote

• I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.

  Wangari Maathai

  War, Thinking, Humanity

  Time Magazine Interview, October 10, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

• The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.

  Wangari Maathai

  Loss, Effort, Environmental

  11 Copy quote

• What is really important is to educate people how to protect themselves and how to ensure that, despite their poverty, they can get tested and access drugs. So I just hope that those who can will make those drugs available.

  Wangari Maathai

  People, Drug, Important

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  7 Copy quote

• It was easy for me to be ridiculed and for both men and women to perceive that maybe I'm a bit crazy because I'm educated in the West and I have lost some of my basic decency as an African woman.

  Wangari Maathai

  Crazy, Men, West

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  8 Copy quote

• I have seen a lot of men, for example, who will make a will and include their daughters whether they are married or not. And perhaps the greatest change of attitude is that today, at least in Kenya, if you don't send your child to school - unless it's a matter of poverty or religion, and it is not that there no schools - then people wonder, "why the hell don't you send your children to school?" Now that's a very big jump from when I was going to school and educating girls was an exception to the rule.

  Wangari Maathai

  Girl, Daughter, Attitude

  Source: kenvironews.wordpress.com

  4 Copy quote

• As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service

  Wangari Maathai

  Future, Justice, Long

  4 Copy quote

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