Environment Quotes

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

- E.O. Wilson

"The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of this planet."

- John F. Kennedy

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

- Aldo Leopold

"Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?"

- Rachel Carson

"Together we can preserve the forest, securing this immense treasure for the future of all these our children."

- Chico Mendes

"Global warming is, quite simply, the biggest thing that humans have ever managed to do."

- Bill McKibben

"Do unto those downstream as you have those upstream do unto you."

- Wendell Berry

"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation."

- Herman E. Daly

"Bringing nature back into the city is a way to deal with urban sprawl. If cities feel a little more natural, people like to live there rather than moving out and dividing up another piece of land that shouldn’t be touched."

- Stone Gossard

"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children."

- American Indian proverb

"It’s surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us but for all life on Earth."

- David Attenborough

"Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?"

- Jane Goodall

"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future."

- John F. Kennedy

"How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can’t destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing."

- Paulo Coelho

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as life lasts."

- Rachel Carson

"We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to."

- Terry Swearingen

"When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, the last river is polluted and 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

"To be young and aware is to know you’re being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative but much better than the world we have now."

- Alex Steffen

"Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is either mad or an economist."

- David Attenborough

"If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us."

- David Suzuki

"The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse."

- Herman E. Daly

"We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us."

- Wendell Berry

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

- Thomas Edison

"Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers"

- Peter Singer

"If it is wrong to wreck the planet, then it is wrong to profit from that wreckage."

- Bill McKibben

"The first rule of holes is that when you are in one, stop digging."

- Bill McKibben

"We need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization."

- Bill McKibben

"Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives."

- Carl Sagan

"Happy Birthday, my eco-conscious darling! May this year bring you closer to the change you wish to see in the world and the sustainable future you’re passionate about🌱"

"When the last tree has been cut, the last river poisoned and the last fish been caught, only then we realise that we cannot eat money."