Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

You want to live in harmony with nature and with each other.

In losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of creation.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.

We need a philosophy for humans and nature to live together.

We can save ourselves, but only if we let go of the myth of dominance and mastery and learn to work with nature.

Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.

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

If we don't start acknowledging our correct position as nothing more than a part of the planet as opposed to this perception that we're superior, then we won't have it much longer. We're facing a very turbulent, war-torn, drought-ridden existence for future generations unless we act now.

My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature. And can I do that alone? No. So there is a whole army of youth that can do it. So I suppose my mission is to reach as many of those young people as I can through my own efforts.

The earth is for joy, and dancing is a big part of that. And you dance with nature. Nature is always dancing. If you're not harassing it and killing it and mutilating it, nature is dancing. That's what the leaves are doing when the wind blows through them. We live in a magical wonderful universe. And just spoil it while thinking we can at some point go to heaven or some other planet.

Make friends with nature by working in harmony with her and she will make friends with you.

If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balanced relationship with one another and the Earth.

We have, in a sense, lorded it over nature, over Sister Earth, over Mother Earth, i think man has gone too far.

We human beings are not only the beneficiaries but also the stewards of other creatures. Thanks to our bodies, God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. Let us not leave in our wake a swatch of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations.

The seriousness of ecological degradation lays bare the depth of man's moral crisis... Simplicity, moderation, and discipline as well as the spirit of sacrifice must become a part of everyday life.

We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature.

When you are in accord with nature, nature will yield its bounty. This is something that is coming up in our own consciousness now...recognizi ng that by violating the environment in which we are living, we are really cutting off the energy and source of our own living. And it’s this sense of accord, so that living properly in relation to what has to be done in this world one fosters the vitality of the environment.

The peoples of the Andes believe in the concept of 'living well' instead of wanting to 'live better' by consuming more, regardless of the cost to our neighbors and our environment.

We are evolutionary descendents of this marvellous panoply of life. And what that says unequivocally is we have an utter total obligation to make sure we have an environment that not only is good for us but is good for all living organisms.

The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them.

Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways.

Living on a planet of fixed size requires compromise, and while we are the only party capable of negotiating, we are not the only party at the table. We've never claimed more, and we've never had less.