Ecology Quotes

• The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.

  Albert Ellis

  Inspirational, Life, Happiness

  229 Copy quote

• Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.

  Gary Snyder

  Nature, Home, Earth

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.7, Counterpoint Press

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• It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Responsibility, Environmental

  67 Copy quote

• The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.

  Barry Commoner

  Nature, Animal, Law

  35 Copy quote

• We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.

  Margaret Mead

  Nature, Carpe Diem, Society

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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

  68 Copy quote

• The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Zoos, Ocean

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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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• Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.

  Stewart Udall

  Nature, Men, Air

  Stewart L. Udall (1968). “1976: Agenda for Tomorrow”

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• Ecology and spirituality are fundamentally connected, because deep ecological awareness, ultimately, is spiritual awareness.

  Fritjof Capra

  Spiritual, Awareness, Connected

  51 Copy quote
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  The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

  Ross Perot

  Dirty, Men, Rivers

  140 Copy quote

• Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.

  François-René de Chateaubriand

  Civilization, Desert, Forests

  70 Copy quote

• 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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• Ecology, like genetics, is not about equilibrium states. It is about change, change and change. Nothing stays the same forever.

  Matt Ridley

  Forever, Genetics, States

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  Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Beauty

  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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• That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.

  Aldo Leopold

  Respect, Land, Community

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.18, Library of America

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• The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.

  Frank Herbert

  Nature, Understanding, Environment

  "Dune". Book by Frank Herbert, 1965.

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• As long as hierarchy persists, as long as domination organises humanity around a system of elites, the project of dominating nature will continue to exist and inevitably lead our planet to ecological extinction.

  Murray Bookchin

  Nature, Persistence, Long

  "Toward an Ecological Society". Book by Murray Bookchin, 1980.

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• Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment.

  Rene Dubos

  Men, Decision, Tree

  9 Copy quote

• It's a morbid observation, but if every one on earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem.

  Jerry Adler

  Breathing, Earth, Problem

  8 Copy quote

• Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.

  Garrett Hardin

  Heart, Conservatism, Continuity

  Garrett James Hardin (1985). “Filters Against Folly: How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent”, Penguin Group USA

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• When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can't eat money.

  Alanis Obomsawin

  Money, Nature, Food

  "Who is the Chairman of This Meeting? : A Collection of Essays". Book by Ralph Osborne (p. 43), "Conversations with North American Indians" by Ted Poole, 1972.

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• I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

  E. B. White

  Time, Nature, Fall

  77 Copy quote

• The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Science, History, Tree

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.47, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• If, in our haste to 'progress,' the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and policy makers alike, the result will be an ugly America. We cannot afford an America where expedience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye only on the present.

  Stewart Udall

  Eye, America, Decision

  Stewart L. Udall (1988). “The quiet crisis and the next generation”, Gibbs Smith

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