Resources

Environmental Quotes

The following quotes do not necessarily reflect WAEE's views on these topics; rather, they are intended to provide food for thought.

Nature

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread; places to play in and places to pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer, and give strength to body and soul alike.
~ John Muir, "The Hetch Hetchy Valley" Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1908

Most children have a bug period, and I never grew out of mine.
~ Edward O. Wilson, Harvard entomologist, in his book Naturalist

Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life.
~ Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia, 1984, p, 22

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
~ Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia, 1984, p, 121

Go outside and walk a bit, long enough to take in and record new surroundings. Enjoy the best-kept secret around -- the ordinary, everyday landscape that touches any explorer with magic.
~ John Stilgoe, 1998, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places

"Progress" was synonymous with distance from nature...Each inventor and producer who worked on building tomorrow's world just threw in a brick or a cogwheel wherever he cared to, and it was up to us of the next generation to find out what the result would be.
~ Thor Heyerdahl, Green was the Earth on the Seventh Day, 1996, p. 26

There's too much greed, too much consumption. We have to focus on saving some portion of nature for the next millennium.
~ George Schaller, naturalist, ecologist, world explorer

What our kids don't know, they won't miss.
~ Said by a rancher in Prairy Erth, by William Least Heat-Moon, 1991

Humankind, no matter how sophisticated or technical, owes its entire existence to a few inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains.
~ Author unknown

I have argued in this book that we are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms. They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted, and they offer the challenge and freedom innately sought. To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the old excitement of the untrammeled world will be regained. I offer this as a formula of reenchantment to invigorate poetry and myth: mysterious and little known organisms live within walking distance of where you sit. Splendor awaits in minute proportions.
~ Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia, 1984, p. 139

Activism

If you want a large number of people to work together in a coordinated way, they must share an image of the system of which they are a part.
~ Karl-Henrik Robert, Founder of The Natural Step

If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are.
~ Wendell Berry

If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to sleep in a room with a mosquito.
~ Author unknown

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece - by thought, choice, determination.
~ John Luther, in The Scouter, February 2000

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
~ Goethe

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.
~ Albert Einstein

If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.
~ Chinese Proverb

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
~ Henry Ford

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
~ Anatole France

Education

Real education consists in drawing the best out of yourself.
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten.
~ Wendy Kaminer

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
~ Albert Einstein

The close observer soon discovers that the teacher's task is not to implant facts but to place the subject to be learned in front of the learner and, through sympathy, emotion, imagination, and patience, to awaken in the learner the restless drive for answers and insights which enlarge the personal life and give it meaning.
~ Nathan Marsh Pusey

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
~ Alvin Toffler

Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.
~ Anatole France

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
~ Anatole France