Bill McKibben Quotes

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.

Too many people get lost in the game of having a good time and being naive about things.

Another way to lose control is to ignore something when you should address it.

We want to believe that we can continue doing what we've done for the past thousand years and not worry about the consequences coming back to us.

Complacency makes one as guilty as those who destroy the Earth.

If we sit by and become complacent and put our heads in the sand, we're complicit.

I think the worst thing you can do about a situation is nothing.

People die as you elect new apostles of neglect.

History repeats itself because no one listens the first time.

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active.

Were we to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority.

Society is much like the ostrich with its head in the sand. It will not look at facts and face the responsibility of its own stupidity.

You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know.

Ignorance can be improved; willful ignorance and inaction is inexcusable.

I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something that we, through our apathy and our indifference, have given away.

For all the evils in the world, I think apathy is one of the most dangerous.

My biggest worry is that sometimes you know the problem, but you don't do anything about it until it gets too big to be fixed.

Teach us the names of what we have destroyed.

It seems that great minds a hundred years ago saw what would happen today or tomorrow, while we to whom it is happening blind ourselves in order not to be disturbed in our daily routine.

Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness? -- and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If people can say, 'Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,' they think it is all right.

The ocean is tired. It's throwing back at us what we're throwing in there.

Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than malice and wickedness.

We are a nation of children letting horrible things happen, and flunking Calc.

Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness.