Happy Earth Day! We could write all day about how much we love the earth, you love the earth and all of the things that we can do as postconsumers to help preserve the earth. But the truth is that so many people have said this better than we ever can! So, in celebration of Earth Day, here are our favorite quotes that celebrate the spirit.
1. “Every day is Earth Day.” Author Unknown
2. “Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” Cree Indian Proverb
3. “In wilderness is the preservation of the world.” Henry David Thoreau
4. “I conceive that the land belongs to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless numbers are still unborn”. A Chieftain from Nigeria
5. “The Earth has a skin and that skin has diseases, one of its diseases is called man.” Friedrich Nietzsche Philosopher 1844-1900
6. “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Walt Kelly
7. “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Native American Proverb
8. “All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. It must be this voice that is telling me to do something, and I am sure it’s the same voice that is speaking to everybody on this planet – at least everybody who seems to be concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of this planet.” Wangari Maathai-Noble Peace prize winner, Deputy Minister of Environment, founder Green Belt movement in Kenya.
9. “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” Marshall McLuhan, 1964
10. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” Francis Bacon Essayist, philosopher 1561-1626
11. “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” John Muir
12. “Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” Henry David Thoreau
13. “Everything is connected. Connectivity is going to be the key to addressing these issues, like contaminants and climate change. They’re not just about contaminants on your plate. They’re not just about the ice depleting. They’re about the issue of humanity. What we do every day — whether you live in Mexico, the United States, Russia, China … can have a very negative impact on an entire way of life for an entire people far away from that source.” Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Inuit activist
14. “The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.” Barry Commoner
15. “There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.” Robert Orben
16. “There would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationists themselves in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren’t at the same time raising young people to be better stewards.” Dr. Jane Goodall Primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist
17. “Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.” Bill Vaughn, quoted in Jon Winokur, The Portable Curmudgeon, 1987
18. “Until a man duplicates a blade of grass, Nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favorable comparison with the products of Nature, the living cell of a plant, the final result of the rays of the sun, the mother of all life.” Thomas Alva Edison Inventor 1847-1931
19. “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.” Ralph Nader
20. “For 200 years we’ve been conquering Nature. Now we’re beating it to death.” Tom McMillan, quoted in Francesca Lyman, The Greenhouse Trap, 1990
21. “I wake up in the morning asking myself what can I do today, how can I help the world today. I believe in what I do beyond a shadow of a doubt. I gave my word to this tree and to all the people that my feet would not touch the ground until I had done everything in my power to make the world aware of this problem and to stop the destruction.” Julia Butterfly Hill Environmentalist who spent 738 days living in a tree in order to save the old growth forests
22. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
23. “I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.” Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977
24. “If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” Henry David Thoreau Author, naturalist 1817-1862
25. “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Henry David Thoreau
26. “Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.” Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future, 1963
27. “The earth is what we all have in common.” Wendell Berry Author, farmer, cultural critic
28. “The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.” Gaylord Nelson
29. “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, 1855
30. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948
31. “After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world.” Pam Shaw
32. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.” George Gordon, Lord Byron
33. “There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.” Brooke Medicine Eagle
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