Henry David Thoreau Quotes

God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the seas…. God said “Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.”

It was a country . . . that he and his people had known how to use and abuse, but not how to preserve.

Children, be worried when they call you America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they've done to the other natural resources?

My mind boggles at the amount of violence inflicted upon children in today's society.

How can we teach our children to be responsible beyond themselves and care for other human beings' welfare and for the welfare of the planet and all that it contains? It's a difficult lesson to convey, when, more than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, Prince William Sound is still experiencing the damaging effects.

Nature surrounds us, from parks and backyards to streets and alleyways. Next time you go out for a walk, tread gently and remember that we are both inhabitants and stewards of nature in our neighbourhoods.

Pity those who nature abuses; never those who abuse nature.

The more we exploit nature, The more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival.

We live on the most incredible planet, and yet we abuse it, and we abuse it mercilessly.

Thank you for your very detailed letter regarding Scientology. We haven't yet found a way to attack these jackals who feed on children and young adults who are too emotionally weak to stand by themselves when they reach the age of consent. It's too bad there isn't a 20th Century Charles Dickens to write about the terrible destruction of these 20th Century Fagins who make themselves rich while they destroy the psyche of so many.

If we are to save our children then we must become people they will look up to. Children need heroes now more than ever because the poor children of this nation live with monsters every day. Monsters deprive them of heat in the winter, they don't fix their sinks and toilets, they let garbage pile up in their hallways, they kick them out of their homes, they beat them, shoot them, stab them-sometimes to death-they rape their bodies and their minds. Sometimes they lurk under the stairs. They scuttle around in the dark; you hear them in the walls gnawing, squeaking, occasionally biting a little finger.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured, but we can reduce the number of tortured children.

The exploitation of children is both easy and profitable.

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts... The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

I do hope there are other wonderful planets living and thriving out there, but ours is special because it is ours and ours to take care of. We really can't take that too lightly.

When you refer to terra entities, you ornately say Mother Nature and Mother Earth. How much honour and care do all of us accord to any of the three - including our real life mother?

Let’s reserve judgment for people who beat their children, sell their daughters into prostitution, or deny women the right to make decisions about their bodies and their lives.

His chains chinked softly. I seldom fling children from towers to improve their health. Yes, I meant for him to die.

Tell the Earth how much you care, how beautiful she is, and how much you love her. Ask for her forgiveness for having been so careless.

To be a good shepherd is to shear the flock, not skin it!

I think I asphyxiated my children.

... this task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not "care" for it, we do not respect it, we do not consider it as a free gift that we must care for.

No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.

Children are the brightest treasures we bring forth into this world, but too large a percentage of the population continues to treat them as inconveniences and nuisances, when they're not treating them as possessions or toys.

Our children may save us if they are taught to care properly for the planet; but if not, it may be back to the Ice Age or the caves from where we first emerged. Then we'll have to view the universe above from a cold, dark place. No more jet skis, nuclear weapons, plastic crap, broken pay phones, drugs, cars, waffle irons, or television. Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea.