Conservation Quotes

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  The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Ocean, Men, Sea

  Speech by Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas on the occasion of the signing of the Belém Statement, Lisbon, europa.eu. July 13, 2017.

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

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Nature

  167 Copy quote

• To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Nature, Children

  Theodore Roosevelt, Paul H. Jeffers (1998). “The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations”, p.30, Taylor Trade Publications

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• People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Thinking, People

  40 Copy quote

• What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Peace, Nature, Reflection

  30 Copy quote

• Energy conservation is the foundation of energy independence.

  Tom Allen

  Independence, Foundation, Energy

  90 Copy quote

• The purpose of conservation: The greatest good to the greatest number of people for the longest time.

  Gifford Pinchot

  Nature, Numbers, People

  134 Copy quote

• Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

  E. O. Wilson

  Nature, Renaissance, Gains

  186 Copy quote
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  Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

  John Muir

  Peace, Nature, Sunshine

  Atlantic Monthly, Apr. 1898

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• Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

  Dr. Seuss

  Inspirational, Life, Fun

  The Lorax (1971)

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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

  69 Copy quote

• Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

  William Wordsworth

  Life, Education, Teacher

  William Wordsworth (1837). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth: Together with a Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England, Now First Published with His Works ...”, p.337

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

  Margaret Mead

  Nature, Carpe Diem, Society

  28 Copy quote

• ...conservation of land and conservation of people frequently go hand in hand.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Hands, Land, People

  Eleanor Roosevelt, David Emblidge (1989). “Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day: Her Acclaimed Columns, 1936-1945”

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• Conservation means development as much as it does protection.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mean, Presidential, Development

  Theodore Roosevelt (2014). “Selected Speeches and Writings of Theodore Roosevelt”, p.119, Vintage

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• In wildness is the preservation of the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Camping, World, Transcendentalism

  "Walking" (1862)

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• There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. 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. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mean, Delight, Development

  Theodore Roosevelt (1955). “Theodore Roosevelt's America: Selections from the Writings of the Oyster Bay Naturalist”

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• Grassroots groups challenge the "business-as-usual" environmentalism that is generally practiced by the more privileged wildlife-and conservation-oriented groups. The focus of activists of color and their constituents reflects their life experiences of social, economic, and political disenfranchisement.

  Robert D Bullard

  Color, Racism, Focus

  16 Copy quote

• Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of ... permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.

  Jimmy Carter

  Running, Oil, Energy

  55 Copy quote

• If there is any one duty which more than another we owe it to our children and our children's children to perform at once, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most important element in the conservation of the natural resources of this country.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Country, Children, Tree

  Theodore Roosevelt (1910). “Presidential addresses and state papers”

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  A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Beauty, Spiritual

  Letter of 1950, as quoted in "The New York Times", March 29, 1972.

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• Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence . . .

  Wallace Stegner

  Zoos, Dirty, Book

  Wallace Earle Stegner (2007). “The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner”, Counterpoint

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• In the name of the bee And of the butterfly And of the breeze, amen!

  Emily Dickinson

  Nature, Smart, Butterfly

  Emily Dickinson, Helen Vendler (2010). “Dickinson”, p.27, Harvard University Press

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• Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!

  Chief Seattle

  Memories, Footprint, Seattle

  "The Love Project Journey", www.imdb.com. 2010.

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• The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.

  Karl Marx

  Civilization, Environmental, Done

  Karl Marx, David Fernbach (1981). “Capital: a critique of political economy”

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