Green Earth Quotes

• We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.

  Thomas Fuller

  Ocean, Sea, Oil And Water

  "Gnomologia". Book by Thomas Fuller, 1732.

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• Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.

  William Ruckelshaus

  Nature, Lunch, Pollution Control

  Business Week, June 18, 1990.

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• We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children

  Chief Seattle

  Motivational, Wisdom, Peace

  301 Copy quote

• Humanity is on the march, earth itself is left behind.

  David Ehrenfeld

  Green World, Earth Day, Humanity

  "The Arrogance of Humanism". Book by David Ehrenfeld, 1978.

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• Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Life, Lonely, Nature

  209 Copy quote

• Forests are the lungs of our land.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Land, Earth Day, Tree

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1938). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1935, Volume 4”, p.65, Best Books on

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• The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity... that's all there is. That's the whole economy. That's where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.

  Gaylord Nelson

  Jobs, Ocean, Rivers

  Gaylord Nelson, Paul A. Wozniak, Susan M. Campbell (2002). “Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise”, p.157, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?

  Robert Redford

  Nature, Thinking, Earth Day

  82 Copy quote
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  Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
  For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
  America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
  And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.

  George Carlin

  Beautiful, Song, Nature

  "Class Clown". Comedy album by George Carlin, 1972.

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• There would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationists themselves in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren't at the same time raising young people to be better stewards.

  Jane Goodall

  Animal, People, Earth Day

  45 Copy quote

• I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

  John Muir

  Nature, Flower, Adventure

  John Muir, Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1979). “John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir”, p.427, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Motivational, Nature, Animal

  "Paradigms Lost: Learning from Environmental Mistakes, Mishaps and Misdeeds" by Daniel A. Vallero, (p. 367), 2005.

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• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Nature

  172 Copy quote

• The earth is what we all have in common.

  Wendell Berry

  Nature, Earth Day, Environmental

  Wendell Berry (2015). “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture”, p.97, Counterpoint

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• Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Sky, Earth Day

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.217, Courier Corporation

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• Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Motivational, Nature, Laughter

  23 Copy quote

• There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.

  Robert Orben

  Fun, Air, Earth Day

  "Waiting to Inhale: Don't Take a Breath Without the Report From Our Air Pollution Control District". The San Diego Union-Tribune, January 31, 2008.

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• To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower.

  William Blake

  Nature, Flower, Eternity Of Life

  "Auguries of Innocence" l. 1 (ca. 1803)

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• We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved.

  Paul Morley

  Mother, Flower, Cutting

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  The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.

  Marya Mannes

  Revenge, Abuse, Environmental

  Marya Mannes (1958). “More in Anger”

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• Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Love, God, Spiritual

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.445, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Native American, Web Of Life, Earth Day

  Seattle (Chief) (1980). “How can one sell the air?: the manifesto of an Indian chief”, Book Publishing Company (TN)

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• Everything is connected. Connectivity is going to be the key to addressing these issues, like contaminants and climate change. They're not just about contaminants on your plate. They're not just about the ice depleting. They're about the issue of humanity. What we do every day - whether you live in Mexico, the United States, Russia, China ... can have a very negative impact on an entire way of life for an entire people far away from that source.

  Sheila Watt-Cloutier

  Impact, Keys, Russia

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• In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops.

  Paul Brooks

  Land, America, Environmental

  Paul Brooks (1971). “The pursuit of wilderness”

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• Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  48 Copy quote