Inspirational Environmental Quotes

• Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

  John Muir

  Nature, Heart, I Hate You

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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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  Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

  Margaret Mead

  Inspirational, Life, Friendship

  Margaret Mead, Robert B. Textor (2005). “The World Ahead: An Anthropologist Anticipates the Future”, p.12, Berghahn Books

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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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• The sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away.

  Stephanie Mills

  Safe Environment, Earth Day, Environmental

  Stephanie Mills (1990). “In Praise of Nature”, p.97, Island Press

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• The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.

  Al Gore

  Paris, Attention, Environment

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• To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Nature, Mean, Science

  Terry Tempest Williams (2008). “Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert”, p.75, Vintage

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• We owe our lives to the sun... How is it, then, that we feel no gratitude?

  Lewis Thomas

  Life, Gratitude, Earth Day

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• I feel more confident than ever that the power to save the planet rests with the individual consumer.

  Denis Hayes

  Environmental, Economy, Individual

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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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• We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us.

  Mary Daly

  Science, Rivers, Environmental

  Mary Daly (1973). “Beyond God the Father: toward a philosophy of women's liberation”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• Let the clean air blow the cobwebs from your body. Air is medicine.

  Lillian Russell

  Nature, Science, Blow

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• 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

  Rain, Science, Thinking

  Sandra Postel (2014). “The Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity”, p.184, Routledge

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• For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.

  Rachel Carson

  History, Historical, Environmental

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.

  Mother Teresa

  People, Environmental, Use

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• If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Nature, Joy, Cooking

  Joseph Wood Krutch (1969). “The Best Nature Writing of Joseph Wood Krutch”

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• To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.

  Wendell Berry

  Nature, Garden, Earth Day

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• The poetry of the earth is never dead.

  John Keats

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

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• We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

  Albert Einstein

  Nature, Thinking, Web Of Life

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.15, St. Martin's Press

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• When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

  John Muir

  Inspirational, Peace, Nature

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• And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Running, Nature

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 1, l. 12

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• The ultimate test of a man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.

  Gaylord Nelson

  Sacrifice, Grandchildren, Men

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  We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

  Aldo Leopold

  Inspiring, Respect, Nature

  A Sand County Almanac foreword (1949)

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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, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth

  Science, Rivers, Environmental

  Attributed in A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations, ed. Barbara K. Rodes and Rice Odell (1992)

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  Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Summer, Peace

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