John Muir Quotes

Hopefully, generations after us will continue to protect, preserve, and look after this wonderful land.

If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.

Just as our forefathers saved and invested to build what we, the current generation, are enjoying today, so, too, we must plant trees so that our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, can enjoy the shade.

I need money to build parks. I will build more parks. That's all I'm interested in.

Though the word beautification makes the concept sound merely cosmetic, it involves much more: clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas. To me … beautification means our total concern for the physical and human quality we pass on to our children and the future.

I can't think of a greater legacy than, "Because you lived, another species survived."

Ever since I had my first child I have been passionate in my commitment to preserve our precious resources for my children and their children's children. This is the obligation of all of us visiting this planet for a limited time.

Parks are works of art just as a painting or sculpture is.

Whoever uplifts civilization is rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect his monument.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

This land, this water, this air, this planet - this is our legacy to our young.

History will treat me right.

Land is not something you inherit from your parents. It is something you borrow from your children.

One-hundred years from now, nobody's going to remember that I played for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays - nobody!

I think my job is to leave some evidence for future generations that there was somebody who cared while we were destroying everything.

Growing up Marley, we wanted anything we put our hands on to be beneficial to the environment and the community.

Leaving a legacy behind is huge.

These parks are our life's work, not the clothing chains we created, selling people clothes they don't need.

There is much the government can do and should do to improve the environment. But even more important is the individual who plants a tree or cleans a corner of neglect. For it is the individual who himself benefits, and also protects a heritage of beauty for his children and future generations.

We, the present generation, have the responsibility to act as a trustee of the rich natural wealth for the future generations. The issue is not merely about climate change; it is about climate justice.

People need open space. People need to bring their children into an area where they can play without restriction." And I was told, "This is development." And I said, "That is not development, definitely not sustainable development, definitely not responsible development. People need fresh air. They can do without buildings. They can do without concrete. But they cannot do without fresh air.

If there is any one duty which more than another we owe it to our children and our children's children to perform at once, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most important element in the conservation of the natural resources of this country.

It is our task in our time and in our generation, to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours.

As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.