Environmental Quotes

• Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.

  Earl Nightingale

  Inspirational, Karma, Attitude

  66 Copy quote

• We should have no concern for the environment, because, after the great flood with Noah, God promised that He would never ruin the earth again.

  James Inhofe

  Should Have, Earth, Ruins

  29 Copy quote

• Successfully reframing the climate debate in the United States from one based on environmental values to one based on health values...holds great promise to help American society better understand and appreciate the risks of climate change.

  George Mason

  Appreciate, Risk, Promise

  8 Copy quote

• Socialism failed because it couldn't tell the economic truth. Capitalism may fail because it couldn't tell the ecological truth.

  Lester R. Brown

  May, Failing, Socialism

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• It doesn't have the ability to think rationally this economic model. It thinks like a drug addict: 'Where can I get my next fix?' It doesn't learn wisely. Any kind of measure of natural wisdom would be: you make a mistake, you correct it the next time around. But a drug addict feels terrible... and then says: 'I want more'. Unfortunately we have an economic model that thinks like a crack addict.

  Naomi Klein

  Mistake, Thinking, Economic Models

  7 Copy quote

• 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, World

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

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• I do not know of any environmental group in any country that does not view its government as an adversary.

  Gro Harlem Brundtland

  Country, Views, Government

  6 Copy quote

• We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Population Problem, Two, Roots

  77 Copy quote

• Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

  Aldo Leopold

  Inspirational, Motivational, Hands

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.556, Library of America

  80 Copy quote

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• You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Philosophical, Land, Fruit

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2013). “The Essential Writings of Rousseau”, p.50, Modern Library

  21 Copy quote

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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)

  120 Copy quote

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• Be gentle with the earth.

  Dalai Lama

  Karma, Buddhist, Earth

  25 Copy quote

• 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, Earth

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

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• The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.

  Wangari Maathai

  Loss, Effort, Poverty

  11 Copy quote

• The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet.

  John F. Kennedy

  Time, Reality, Wilderness

  Speech to a joint session of the Dail and the Seanad, Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963.

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• 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 most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of its life.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Men, Sea

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  186 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

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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

  239 Copy quote

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• Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Men, Land

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.145, Oxford University Press

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• Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Apology, Drunk, Society

  47 Copy quote

• Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children's lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.

  Luna Leopold

  Nature, Children, Rivers

  68 Copy quote
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  One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?

  Rachel Carson

  Motivational, Change, Gratitude

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.24, Open Road Media

  250 Copy quote

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• Once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price

  Ansel Adams

  Nature, Conservation, Natural Environment

  42 Copy quote

• It is absolutely imperative that we protect, preserve and pass on this genetic heritage for man and every other living thing in as good a condition as we received it.

  David R. Brower

  Men, Heritage, Protect

  17 Copy quote