Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

I love focusing on what we have to do right here in Lexington.

Mend the part of the world that is within your reach.

Before you promise to change the world, it makes sense to do the hard work of changing your neighborhood.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.

I can't solve the world's problems, can't even begin to contemplate them all. But on my little corner of Earth, I at least can try to live in a way that treads lightly.

If you feel rooted in your home and family, if you're active in your community, there's nothing more empowering. The best way to make a difference in the world is to start by making a difference in your own life.

Think globally, act locally.

The first lesson in civics is that efficient government begins at home.

I think we - the way to stop anything violent or anything wrong is by really just paying attention to your own circle. You only can help the world by helping the people next to you.

Grass-roots work is not flashy, and rarely celebrated on the national media level, but that is where change begins.

In Washington you legislate, but at home you touch people's lives; that's what I try to do when I go there.

I am often asked what can people do to become a good global citizen? I reply that it begins in your own community.

We're emotionally unfit. We expect things to be given to us that other generations had to earn. We think we're supposed to get homes with no money down and be supported by the government if we're unemployed.

I was in the Air Force a while and they had what they call "policing the area." That's where you looked around and if there's anything wrong here, there, anywhere, you took care of your own area. And I think that's a pretty good thing to go by. If everyone just takes care of their own area then we won't have any problems. Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. And look around you and see what needs to be changed.

I think one of the things that's happening is that people are realizing that they can't pass the buck to the government because the government, at least as far it comes to environmental protection, doesn't exist. That they're going to have to bite the bullet a little bit themselves. Look, there are no silver linings to Trumpism. This is an unmitigated disaster. But let's hope that at least it helps people find their courage in this resistance.

Think globally, act locally": "Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.

I have gone from a Barry Goldwater Republican to a New Democrat, but I think my underlying values have remained pretty constant; individual responsibility and community. I do not see those as being mutually inconsistent.

Think globally, act locally, think tribally, act universally.

We want someone else to act. But miracles aren't what other people do. They're what each of us does. They're what happens when ordinary people take extraordinary action. To be a miracle doesn't mean you have to tackle problems across the globe. It means making a difference in your own living room, cubicle, neighborhood, community.

Those people work more wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world ... than those who are forever thinking that life is in vain, unless one can. do big things.

Understand and be confident that each of us can make a difference by caring and acting in small as well as big ways.

Recently, I was giving a speech and I said that it's time for many of us to "go home." Not necessarily to move back home but rather to go back to our communities and support those outreach programs and those people who could use our assistance.

I feel I need to really think about whether there's a way to use what skill I have to address things that outrage me, like the 13 year old girl getting stoned to death. Because I don't think making a movie is going to help that, or change that.

Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, I think the lesson I learned from [playing humanitarian Tessa in The Constant Gardner] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.