Destroying The Environment Quotes

• Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Nature, Men, Society

  Albert Schweitzer (1984). “The Words of Albert Schweitzer”

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• Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

  Anton Chekhov

  Men, Land, Wild Life

  'Uncle Vanya' (1897) act 1

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

  Margaret Mead

  Nature, Carpe Diem, Society

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• The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Nature, Science, Land

  Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law, February 26, 1937.

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• If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Love, Hurt, Kindness

  "Ellen DeGeneres: Nice Girls Finish First". Interview with David Hochman, www.goodhousekeeping.com. September 10, 2011.

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

  E. O. Wilson

  Nature, Renaissance, Gains

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• 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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• The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.

  Pope John Paul II

  Nature, Land, Faithful

  Pope John Paul II (1987). “Unity in the work of service: on the occasion of his second pastoral visit to the United States”, United States Catholic Conference

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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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• Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Insperational

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.71, Trajectory Inc

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• If there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational. Because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Zero, Grandchildren, Space

  Source: www.madre.org

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• It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life.

  Rene Dubos

  Men, Earth Day, Quality

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• The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

  John Muir

  Spiritual, Civilization, Environment

  Letter to J.B. McChesney, September 19, 1871.

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• Human beings have been waging war and destroying the environment for long time. Just because it has been going on for a long time and become an unquestioned habit, does that mean it should be allowed to continue.

  Sharon Gannon

  War, Mean, Long

  "Sharon Gannon on Veganism". jivamuktiyoga.com. November 16, 2016.

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• The sad thing about destroying the environment is that we're going to take the rest of life with us. The bluebirds will be gone, and the elephants will be gone, and the tigers will be gone, and the pandas will be gone.

  Ted Turner

  Elephants, Rest Of Life, Pandas

  "Interview Showdown: Ted Turner 1, Publicist 0" by Michelle Kung, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 28, 2008.

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• 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

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• Farmers since the beginning of time have been feeding the world very successfully without systematically abusing animals or destroying the environment. But we're breeding food that is less safe for us, it tastes much worse than it ever has in history, and it's wreaking havoc on the environment in a way that it never did in history before. All in the interest of it being cheap.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, World, Safe

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. November 17, 2009.

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• Suppose that we believe what we are taught. . . . destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies . . . of institutional lunacy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Believe, Space, Taught

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• Aquatic invasive species are destroying the environment, damaging fisheries, and costing American taxpayers billions of dollars annually.

  John M. McHugh

  Dollars, Environment, Destroying

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• When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth. We don't think about it, but it has a tremendous effect. But these are things you don't see right in front of your eyes. You need to think about them a little, to see what the consequences are. It's easy to put them aside, and the media don't talk about them.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eye, Thinking, Media

  Source: www.salon.com

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• When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth.

  Noam Chomsky

  Use, Earth, Environment

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Life as we know it is fundamentally unsatisfying. I think most folks feel this to be true. They know that a life of aimless consumption isn't much of a life. And work offers us very little satisfaction. Plus our work and consumption is destroying the environment. And this is in the rich countries. Add starvation, etc. to the mix, and you have a lot of people in the world pretty unhappy with things as they are. Modern communications make all of this known to people far and wide, and we see the fundamental unfairness of it all.

  Michael Yates

  Country, Communication, Thinking

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I can see now a vision emerging how Canada is going to profit in the future from our Arctic resources without destroying the environment on which it is all based.

  Brian Mulroney

  Vision, Canada, Environment

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