Inspirational Environmental Quotes: A Powerful Collection to Ignite Your Passion for Nature

"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. And we are all mortal."

- John F. Kennedy

"There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew."

- Marshall McLuhan

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

- Rachel Carson

"We can never have enough of Nature."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized."

- Rachel Carson

"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

"Wildness is the preservation of the World."

- Henry David Thoreau

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

- John Muir

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."

- John Muir

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."

- Carl Sagan

"Cherish the natural world because you’re part of it and you depend on it."

- David Attenborough

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

- Gary Snyder

"It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living."

- David Attenborough

"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere."

- Laura Ingalls Wilder

"The miracle of nature is right there in front of you."

- David Attenborough

"When you go out there (into the wilderness), you don’t get away from it all, you get back to it all. You come home to what’s important. You come home to yourself."

- Peter Dombrovskis

"God never made an ugly landscape. All that the sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild."

- John Muir

"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

"The earth is what we all have in common."

- Wendell Berry

"We know most politicians don’t want to talk to us. Good, we don’t want to talk to them either. We want them to talk to the scientists instead."

- Greta Thunberg

"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

"Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible there is no hope."

- Greta Thunberg

"What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on."

- Henry David Thoreau

"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 ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard."

- Gaylord Nelson

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

- Herman E. Daly

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

- Herman E. Daly

"At the end of the day, no amount of investing, no amount of clean electrons, no amount of energy efficiency will save the natural world if we are not paying attention to it ― if we are not paying attention to all the things that nature give us for free: clean air, clean water, breathtaking vistas, mountains for skiing, rivers for fishing, oceans for sailing, sunsets for poets, and landscapes for painters. What good is it to have wind-powered lights to brighten the night if you can’t see anything green during the day? Just because we can’t sell shares in nature doesn’t mean it has no value."

- Thomas Friedman

"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

"Some say that we should not engage in activism, instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?"

- Greta Thunberg

"Our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy is physics. And we cannot make “deals” with physics."

- Greta Thunberg

"If solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself."

- Greta Thunberg

"No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced."

- David Attenborough

"If we wipe out the fish, the oceans are going to die. If the oceans die, we die. We can’t live on this planet with a dead ocean."

- Paul Watson

"An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfilment."

- David Attenborough

"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

- Jane Goodall

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

- Bill McKibben

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."

- Henry David Thoreau

"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

"Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. We can’t save the world by playing by the rules. The rules have to be changed."

- Greta Thunberg

"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans."

- Jacques Yves Cousteau

"This we know; The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know, all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected."

- Chief Seattle

"We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment."

- Margaret Mead

"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

- John Muir

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

- American Indian proverb

"What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain, or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."

- John Muir

"I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!"

- Chief Seattle

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"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

"The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for."

- Ernest Hemingway

"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

"I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use."

- Mother Teresa

"Many of us ask what can I, as one person, do, but history shows us that everything good and bad starts because somebody does something or does not do something."

- Sylvia Earle

"A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children."

- John James Audubon

"We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do."

- Barbara Ward

"All we have to do is to wake up and change."

- Greta Thunberg

"The Earth is what we all have in common."

- Wendell Berry

"The environment is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share."

- Lady Bird Johnson

"We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it."

- Barack Obama

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

- William Shakespeare

"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it."

- Robert Swan

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together … all things connect."

- Chief Seattle

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."

- Albert Einstein

"The earth laughs in flowers."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from."

- Terry Tempest Williams

"Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea."

- Dr. Sylvia Earle

"Every day is Earth Day, and I vote we start investing in a secure climate future right now."

- Jackie Speier

"The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking."

- Albert Einstein

"The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved."

- Richard Rogers

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

- Chico Mendes

"Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known."

- Carl Sagan

"But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself."

- Rachel Carson

"The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard."

- Gaylord Nelson

"It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations."

- David Brower

"For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it."

- Jacques Yves Cousteau

"A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear."

- President Joseph R. Biden

"Good stewardship of the environment is not just a personal responsibility, it is a public value... Our duty is to use the land well, and sometimes not to use it at all. This is our responsibility as citizens, but more than that, it is our calling as stewards of the earth."

- President George W. Bush

"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

"It is time for us now as a nation to exercise the same reasonable foresight in dealing with our great natural resources that would be shown by any prudent man in conserving and widely using the property which contains the assurance of well-being for himself and his children."

- President Theodore Roosevelt

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

- Mohandas Gandhi

"We are the environment and how we treat each other is really how we treat the environment."

- John Francis

"Look after the land and the land will look after you, destroy the land and it will destroy you."

- Aboriginal Proverb

"To make the changes we need to make and to reach a safer future, we will need the resources of everybody here — the scientists, the policy makers, and the industrialists — all working together towards a common goal. And that goal is a planet that can continue to support life."

- Dr. Piers Sellers

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

- Jane Goodall

"It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

- Rachel Carson

"If every day were Earth Day we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in."

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

"A vibrant, fair, and regenerative future is possible — not when thousands of people do climate justice activism perfectly but when millions of people do the best they can."

- Xiye Bastida

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

- Peter Drucker

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We are all musicians in a great human orchestra, and it is now time to play the Save the World Symphony. You are not required to play a solo, but you are required to know what instrument you hold and play it as well as you can. You are required to find your place in the score. What we love we must protect."

- Sandra Steingraber

"I have to work with young people today so that we try and raise new generations to look after this poor old planet better than we have, before it’s too late."

- Jane Goodall

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts ...There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

- Rachel Carson

"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Today’s youth does not have the luxury to have a childhood anymore. Older generations forced us into giving that away by destroying our planet. But if we strike now, if we work to undo the damage done by those before us, then maybe we can restore that luxury for the generations that follow us."

- Ciara Lonergan

"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

"I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature, and I think we’re challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves."

- Rachel Carson

"For many of us, water simply flows from a faucet, and we think little about it beyond this point of contact. We have lost a sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports."

- Sandra Postel

"When enough people come together, then change will come and we can achieve almost anything."

- Greta Thunberg

"To halt the decline of an ecosystem, it is necessary to think like an ecosystem."

- Douglas P. Wheeler

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

- George Bernard Shaw

"We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us."

- Mary Daly

"We can do this. This is the biggest emergent social movement in all of history. We can do this. And if anybody thinks that we don’t have the political will, remember, political will is itself a renewable resource."

- Al Gore

"No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots."

- Maya Angelou

"Were the importance of our forests at all understood by the people in general, even from an economic standpoint their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of the Government."

- John Muir

"My experience with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps and my crew taught me to be patient, to laugh at things, especially when things go completely opposite of how I thought they would go, to work hard and to treat the environment and myself in the best way. I learned about the amazing beauty and stillness of nature, and the physical work it takes to preserve such wonder. I learned the value of preservation and trail work needed to protect the environment that offers us so much. I pushed myself farther than I thought I could ever go. Through this environmental and team service work, I, like many in my crew, found myself."

- Gracie Billingsley, a Corps Network 2015 Corpsmember of the Year

"If you want to become an instrument of change, gather people in your community and host a regular conversation. The only way to succeed is to connect people, share inspiration and support one another."

- Deepak Chopra

"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking."

- Wangari Maathai

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets’ towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

- Edward Abbey

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."

- John Muir

"Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk. The rain makes running pools in the gutter. The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night. And I love the rain."

- Langston Hughes

"You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give."

- E.O. Wilson

"it’s all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it."

- Mike Huckabee

"Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky."

- Kahlil Gibran

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

- Bill McKibben

"You have to hold yourself accountable for your actions, and that’s how we’re going to protect the Earth."

- Julia Butterfly Hill

"The most environmentally friendly product is the one you didn’t buy."

- Joshua Becker

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

- Wendell Berry

"We are on Earth to take care of life. We are on Earth to take care of each other."

- Xiye Bastida

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

- Socrates

"The time to protect a species is while it is still common."

- Rosalie Edge

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win."

- António Guterres

"In nature’s economy the currency is not money, it is life."

- Vandana Shiva

"If we build a society based on honoring the earth, we build a society which is sustainable, and has the capacity to support all life forms."

- Winona LaDuke

"At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity."

- Chico Mendes

"Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day."

- Gifford Pinchot

"The ultimate test of a man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard."

- Gaylord Nelson

"Average people and the average community can change the world. You can do it just based on common sense, determination, persistence and patience."

- Lois Gibbs

"The time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet is now. You can make history or be vilified by it."

- Leonardo DiCaprio

"The truth is we don’t need ten really passionate, committed environmentalists. We need one hundred or one million people who can do a little bit in that field and change things in their domain."

- Malaika Vaz

"Wilderness itself is the basis of all our civilization. I wonder if we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness the right to live on?"

- Margaret Murie

"We can't save the planet without uplifting the voices of its people, especially those most often unheard."

- Leah Thomas

"Let us fight the indifference which has prevailed in the past and move towards that equilibrium between people, consumption, and the carrying capacity of our earth which we call sustainable development."

- Gro Harlem Brundtland

"You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you."

- Vandana Shiva

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

- Chico Mendes

"Earth rejoices our words, breathing and peaceful steps. Let every breath, every word and every step make the mother earth proud of us."

- Amit Ray

"An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment."

- David Attenborough

"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds."

- Dalai Lama

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

- Charles Darwin

"Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness."

- Eckhart Tolle

"For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It always seems impossible until it’s done."

- Nelson Mandela

"The trouble is you think you have time."

- Buddha

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"The Congress, the Administration and the public all share a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man."

- President Richard Nixon

"Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge; it's common sense."

- President Ronald Reagan

"Scientists may depict the problems that will affect the environment based on available evidence, but their solution is not the responsibility of scientists but of society as a whole."

- Mario Molina

"There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use."

- Mother Teresa

"A healthy ecology is the basis for a healthy economy."

- Claudine Schneider

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John Wooden

"Sustainable development - development that does not destroy or undermine the ecological, economic, or social basis on which continued development depends - is the only viable pathway to a more secure and hopeful future for rich and poor alike."

- Maurice Strong

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

- Buckminster Fuller

"Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act."

- Albert Einstein

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were."

- John F. Kennedy

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

- Albert Einstein

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

- John F. Kennedy

"You wouldn’t think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we’ll do it one day. That’s how negligent we are."

- Ian Rankin

"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

"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

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

- Edward Abbey

"You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own that they must protect."

- Wangari Maathai

"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

"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

"If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it."

- Lyndon B. Johnson

"The future depends on what we do in the present."

- Mahatma Ghandi

"But there must be the look ahead, there must be a realization of the fact that 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

"From year to year, environmental changes are incremental and often barely register in our lives, but from evolutionary or geological perspectives, what is happening is explosive change."

- David Suzuki

"We’re in a giant car heading toward a brick wall and everyone’s arguing over where they’re going to sit."

- David Suzuki

"Most people are on the world, not in it – having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them."

- John Muir

"If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers."

- Joseph Wood Krutch

"The difference between what we are doing and what we are capable of doing would solve most of the world’s problems."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"We have the potential to enhance the planet. Trees enhance the planet. People could go further. We could make the Earth sing."

- Michael Reynolds

"When we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress."

- Ed Begley Jnr

"Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty."

- John Ruskin

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

- John Ruskin

"Landscapes of great wonder and beauty lie under our feet and all around us. They are discovered in tunnels in the ground, the heart of flowers, the hollows of trees, fresh-water ponds, seaweed jungles between tides, and even drops of water. Life in these hidden worlds is more startling in reality than anything we can imagine. How could this earth of ours, which is only a speck in the heavens, have so much variety of life, so many curious and exciting creatures?"

- Walt Disney

"I love not Man the less, but Nature more."

- Lord Byron

"I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery – air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.'"

- Sylvia Plath

"How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind doesn’t listen."

- Victor Hugo

"Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day."

- Richard Louv

"Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it."

- Richard Louv

"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 Cousteau

"Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that."

- Sylvia Earle

"We’re not going to win by changing light globes. We need you to be deeply, politically engaged."

- Bill McKibben

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

- Walt Kelly

"The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it."

- Barry Commoner

"I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy … And to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. We scientists don’t know how to do that."

- Gus Speth

"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"He that plants trees loves others besides himself."

- Thomas Fuller

"One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken."

- Leo Tolstoy

"Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there."

- Will Rogers

"It’s not enough that we do our best. Sometimes we have to do what’s required."

- Winston Churchill

"Every moment is a new beginning."

- T.S. Eliot

"Everything that you are against works against you. Everything that you are against can be restated in a way that puts you in support of something. When you are able to state what you are for rather than what you are against, you are focusing on the potential for positive change. Once that is in place, you will find whatever you are focusing on expanding."

- Wayne Dyer

"The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity."

- Winston Churchill

"Discontent is the first necessity of progress."

- Thomas Edison

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."

- Woody Allen

"Nothing beautiful without struggle."

- Plato

"If they say it can’t be done, it doesn’t always work out that way."

- Yogi Berra

"Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress."

- Theodore Levitt

"To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes you have to pick up other people’s trash."

- Bill Nye

"We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us."

- Albert Einstein

"The miracle is not to fly in the air or to walk on water, but to walk on the earth."

- Chinese Proverb

"It looks big, Earth. But there are lots of us on here (7,523,458,567 and counting) so be kind."

- Oliver Jeffers

"There is no medicine you can take that has such a direct influence on your health as a walk in a beautiful forest."

- Dr. Qing Li

"I am a passenger on the spaceship Earth."

- R. Buckminster Fuller

"You cannot affirm the power plant and condemn the smokestack, or affirm the smoke and condemn the cough."

- Wendell Berry

"Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option ... they will become a necessity."

- Fujio Cho

"He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

- Langston Hughes

"Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them."

- Aldo Leopold

"High quality water is more than the dream of the conservationists, more than a political slogan; high quality water, in the right quantity at the right place at the right time, is essential to health, recreation, and economic growth."

- Edmund S. Muskie

"The weight of our civilization has become so great, it now ranks as a global force and a significant wild card in the human future along with the Ice Ages and other vicissitudes of a volatile and changeable planetary system"

- Dianne Dumanoski

"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."

- Carl Sagan

"Na wai ke kupu o ʻoe? Meaning whose sprout are you? This is a question I hold dear to my heart, because in order for the seedling to become the tree it must sprout and break out of the ground first. And for me personally I felt like Kupu really watered, sheltered, and encouraged me out of the ground and to drink in the sunlight. Now it’s up to me to grow to be that big koa tree. And with this question you should be asking yourself, who helped you sprout and how can you pass that on to change someone else’s life by encouraging their breakthrough of the lepo or the dirt."

- Jon Brito, a Corps Network 2014 Corpsmember of the Year

"I left the luxuries of life behind for a simple life. The cell phone was traded for envelopes and stamps. My motorcycle was replaced by a pair of hiking boots. I never imagined myself bathing in a creek or climbing a peak. I worked on mountain ridges during thunderstorms, near soothing creeks, at the world famous Yosemite Falls and throughout Northern California Wilderness. The work was intense and strenuous, and the days were long. I slept on the ground and under the stars. All the sights, sounds and smells will never be forgotten, because pictures and stories will never do justice to what I’ve experienced. Yet the biggest impact was that of my crew. We were an extremely diverse yet close knit crew of twelve. We worked, ate, hiked, relaxed, played, lived and grew together. I made friends for life. Despite five months of arduous labor my impact on the Wilderness is truly insignificant. Rain, snowfall or an earthquake can undo everything I’ve made, dug and cleaned this summer. But my influence on my crewmates and theirs on me will never be washed away."

- Rosalio Cardenas, a 2007 Corpsmember of the Year

"All our wisdom is stored in the trees."

- Santosh Kalwar

"Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint."

- Robert Frost

"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

- Kahlil Gibran

"We’re the advocates for the salmon, the animals, the birds, the water. We’re the advocates for the food chain. We’re an advocate for all of society."

- Billy Frank, Jr.

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

- Albert Einstein

"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment."

- Ansel Adams

"One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency."

- Arnold H. Glasow

"Out of adversity comes opportunity."

- Ben Franklin

"If we wait for the meek to inherit the earth there won’t be anything left to inherit."

- Bob Hunter

"If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."

- Chinese Proverb

"When the winds of change blow, some people build walls while others build windmills."

- Chinese Proverb

"It is important we never be a spectator to unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence."

- Christopher Hitchens

"Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else."

- Fred Rogers

"What after all has maintained the human race on this old globe, despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not the faith in new possibilities and the courage to advocate them."

- Jane Addams

"Change before you have to."

- Jack Welch

"I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones."

- John Cage

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."

- John Kenneth Galbraith

"How do we slow down what matters the most and speed up what benefits change and progress? We don’t want to impede progress, but we are seeking reconnection to ourselves, to each other, and with the world."

- John Maeda

"The situation is hopeless. We must take the next step."

- Pablo Casals

"Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not."

- Pablo Picasso

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

- Dr. Seuss

"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."

- Sigmund Freud

"If the environment is happy, people will laugh and your grief will go away."

- Srinivas Mishra

"You don’t live on earth, you are passing through."

- Rumi

"Nature is an infinite sphere of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere."

- Blaise Pascal

"Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise."

- George Washington Carver

"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and my soul."

- John Muir

"The earth is always changing...readjusting to our existence. Each era is full of unique challenges"

- Val Uchendu

"I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found."

- John Muir

"I firmly believe nature brings solace in all troubles."

- Anne Frank

"The real you is loving, joyful and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun."

- Don Miguel Ruiz

"Earth breathes in us."

- Matthew Edward Hall

"The belief that we can manage the Earth and improve Nature is probably the biggest expression of human pride, but it has deep roots in the past and is almost universal."

- René Dubos

"The Truly Healthy environment is not merely safe but stimulating."

- William H. Stewart

"If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in Water."

- Loren Eiseley

"You don’t have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it."

- Annie Dillard

"All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child."

- Marie Curie

"And He knows what is in the land and sea. Not even a leaf falls without His knowledge, nor a grain in the darkness of the earth or anything—green or dry—but is ˹written˺ in a perfect Record."

- Quran 6:59

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

- Baba Dioum

"The earth has music for those who listen."

- William Shakespeare

"If every building was to consume its own sewerage that’d be huge. Then if every building made its own power, and heated and cooled itself, and caught its own water rather then sucking water out of the aquifers – the ramifications of how people live in their own units could affect things in an unbelievable way. Ultimately it would affect the minds and hearts of people."

- Michael Reynolds

"Men argue. Nature acts."

- Voltaire

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

- African Proverb

"Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization."

- Charles Lindbergh

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

- Bill McKibben

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean."

- Arthur C. Clarke

"Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs, — To the silent wilderness, Where the soul need not repress its music."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced."

- David Attenborough

"Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option … they will become a necessity."

- Fujio Cho

"Going back to a simpler life is not a step backward."

- Yvon Chouinard

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

- Chinese Proverb

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."

- Audrey Hepburn

"Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries."

- Jimmy Carter

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."

- Lao Tzu

"The major problems in the world are the result of the differences between the way nature works and the way people think."

- Gregory Bateson

"There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there."

- Bill McKibben

"If you took stress out of people’s lives and made them happy in terms of the way they live – if you made it easy for them to be at peace on this planet – they would bloom. And I think humanity could go to a whole different level."

- Michael Reynolds

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view."

- Edward Abbey

"People can live in carbon zero homes right now. The technology is here. Allowing it to happen is the problem. Our rules and regulations won’t let us do it."

- Michael Reynolds

"Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished."

- Lao Tzu

"Before the breathin' air is gone, Before the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime."

- Paul Williams and Roger Nichols

"The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof."

- Elizabeth I of England

"You can never see a plant grow, but they do."

- Carol Plum-Ucci

"Green Puerto Rico, talkative and wild! That you seem to think as if you were human; You talk as if you were the expression of the landscape, Of the moods of the rolling hills and of the plains."

- José Antonio Dávila

"Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge."

- Thomas Edison

"Let the clean air blow the cobwebs from your body. Air is medicine."

- Lillian Russell

"Nature provides exceptions to every rule."

- Margaret Fuller

"Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s Party!"

- Robin Williams

"The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful."

- E. E. Cummings

"The Silence of a shut park does not sound like the country silence: it is tense and confirmed."

- Elizabeth Bowen

"Land really is the best art."

- Andy Warhol

"The sun does not forget a village just because it is small."

- African Proverb

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Beauty will save the world."

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter."

- Norman Cousins

"As I walk with Beauty As I walk, as I walk, The universe is walking with me, In beauty it walks before me, In beauty it walks behind me, In beauty it walks below me, In beauty it walks above me, Beauty is on every side."

- Traditional Navajo Prayer

"The poetry of the earth is never dead."

- John Keats

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

- Albert Einstein

"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"Anyone who thinks they're too small to make a difference has never met the honey bee."

- Anon

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today."

- Malcolm X

"To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug."

- Helen Keller

"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

"It's only one straw,' said 8 billion people."

- Anon

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

- Mark Cuban

"Time spent among trees is never time wasted."

- Katrina Mayer

"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."

"A year from now you will wish you had started today."

"The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun."