James Lovelock Quotes

If it's true, as I believe it is, that the planet is alive, then it's probably also true that we may reach a point at which she will begin to defend herself against us.

Remain true to the earth.

If you don't believe that the world has a heart, then you won't hear it beating, you won't think it's alive and you won't consider what you're doing to it.

I think a lot of people in my circle are thinking that way or see the movie [Into the Forest] and then really think that way. I think it's hopefully tapping into sort of a consciousness right now in regards to our society's relationship with the environment and our own and our disconnect from it, myself included.

Since I was very young I've been fascinated with nature and I actually wanted to be a marine biologist when I was very young. That was a great passion of mine. So I suppose in the off season when I'm not making movies, I became more and more active as an environmentalist trying to be more vocal about issues that I felt were important.

There are instances: [Henry David] Thoreau read [John] Wordsworth, [John] Muir read Thoreau, Teddy Roosevelt read Muir, and you got national parks. It took a century for this to happen, for artistic values to percolate down to where honoring the relation of people's imagination to the land, or beauty, or to wild things, was issued in legislation.

Hope is not attached to outcomes but is a state of mind, as Vaclav Havel says, "an orientation of the spirit." And I have faith; maybe more than hope, I have faith. I think of my great-grandmother, Vilate Lee Romney, who came from good pioneer Mormon stock. She always said to us that faith without works is dead, so I think if we have hope, we must work to further that hope. Maybe that is the most important thing of all, to have our faith rooted in action.

It's a very important issue to me, trying to wake people up to the fact that we'd better take better care of our planet.

In our own time, through integrative sciences like ecology and animal behavior and psychology we have re-understood what was forgotten during the reduction centuries of modern science. We've re-understood that the world is one thing, and it's a living thing. It's a thing with an intent and a spirit within it, and this is the key concept.

Mental happiness is more important than physical comfort. Physical comfort comes from the material. But material facilities cannot provide you with peace of mind.

As a director, I have to feel realism from actors, and they can't be plastic. The words for me are secondary, but the chemistry between the actors is most important. However, you have to go by the script because it's related to production, otherwise you will not finish your project. My background are acting, film production, directing, and I studied them for many years. Keep in mind that you need many other skills when you are starting any film project related to real life.

I like to think in camera, but at the last minute the most important thing is that there is something happening between the actors. But good actors can have a lot of scenes going around them but sometimes it sort of helps the performance because it takes their mind off of who they are supposed to be.

It was odd how one found oneself making trivial conversation on important occasions. Perhaps it was because one could not say what was really in one's mind.

As you are working on ideas, you are in a bubble, working on your images. What's important to me in my work, I like this idea of communicating through a piece of art so works don't have to be exchanged. They're okay and they're helpful but most importantly that the image will convey something in my mind that I was trying to communicate and then you have that connection.

Each and every one of us can make changes in the way we live our lives and become part of the solution [to climate change]

Your mind is right now filled with old thoughts. Not only old thoughts, but mostly someone else’s old thoughts. It’s important now, it’s time now, to change your mind about some things. This is what evolution is all about.

This was Mahatma Gandhi’s idea, moving from ownership to relationship—seeing that land does not belong to us. We belong to the land. We are not the owners of the land. We are the friends of the land, like friends of the earth. The fundamental shift is in this consciousness that land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.

From the viewpoint of absolute truth, what we feel and experience in our ordinary daily life is all delusion. Of all the various delusions, the sense of discrimination between oneself and others is the worst form, as it creates nothing but unpleasantness for both sides. If we can realize and meditate on ultimate truth, it will cleanse our impurities of mind and thus eradicate the sense of discrimination. This will help to create true love for one another. The search for ultimate truth is, therefore, vitally important.

I would love to see the world's space programs continue toward sending humans to an asteroid or to Mars, with, of course, a full plan in place to bring them back. That excites me. And one of the things that excites me most about space is that we can go up there and put spacecraft in orbit with sensors that will help us measure the health of our planet, which is becoming particularly important. Our planet needs to be observed.

It is the end of art to inoculate men with the love of nature.

If having endured much, we at last asserted our 'right to know' and if, knowing, we have concluded that we are being asked to take senseless and frightening risks, then we should no longer accept the counsel of those who tell us that we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals, we should look around and see what other course is open to us.

I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world. There is always somthing to learn, always somthing that is important to understand

Mental strength is really important because you either win or lose in your mind.

We are as much alive as we keep the Earth alive.

The habit of ignoring Nature is deeply implanted in our times. This attitude reminds me of people who never look you in the eye; I find them disturbing and always have to look away.