John Muir Quotes

In the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it's for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again.

There are a great many people who are in favor of conservation no matter what it means.

In the time of the sacred sites and the crashing of ecosystems and worlds, it may be worth not making a commodity out of all that is revered.

If we each take responsibility in shifting our own behavior, we can trigger the type of change that is necessary to achieve sustainability for our race or this planet. We change our planet, our environment, our humanity every day, every year, every decade, and every millennia.

It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars.

We only have this one planet; we got to figure out how to live on it without destroying it.

From every conceivable angle-economic social, cultural, public health, national defense-conservation of natural resources is an objective on which all should agree.

The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.

Our national conservation effort must include the complete spectrum of resources: air, water, and land; fuels, energy, and minerals; soils, forests, and forage; fish and wildlife. Together they make up the world of nature which surrounds us- of the American heritage.

The bat­tle we have fought, and are still fight­ing for the forests is a part of the eter­nal con­flict between right and wrong, and we can­not expect to see the end of it. …So we must count on watch­ing and striv­ing for these trees, and should always be glad to find any­thing so surely good and noble to strive for.

Around the world, we see the results of exploitation which destroys much without taking future generations into account. Protecting the world's forests; stemming desertification and erosion; avoiding the spread of toxic substances harmful to man, animals and plants; protecting the atmosphere; all these can be accomplished only through active and wise cooperation, without borders or political power plays.

I believe in a sound, strong environmental policy that protects the health of our people and a wise stewardship of our nation's natural resources.

If you can unify the public mind saving an iconic species like the tiger, like they did with the panda, that means you have to protect their habitat and everything that they hunt. And that means saving massive, thousands of acres for them to be able to roam and breed. So it's more of a land effort.

Development requires modification and transformation of the environment... the planet's capacity to support its people us being irreversibly reduced by the destruction and degradation of the biosphere and the need to understand the problem and take corrective action is becoming urgent.

We have to create a sustainable environment, worldwide, and we're not doing it. The best thing we can do with the rest of this century is aggressively acquire - and put aside - the richest natural reserves that we can, and then do our best to manage the needs and desires of the 11 billion people we expect to have by the end of the century. This is where biology is headed. For that reason, the sooner we get on with mapping biodiversity on Earth, the better off biology will be - not to mention the whole subject of saving it before we carelessly throw it away.

Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.

The task of saving the earth's environment must and will become the central organizing principle of the post-Cold War world.

Do not destroy what you cannot create.

I feel that our planet is in peril and that creating a sustainable planet for my children and my children's children is the most important thing I can do in this lifetime.

There is too little public recognition of how much we all depend upon farmers as stewards of our soil, water and wildlife resources.

Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family.

The preservation of parks, wilderness, and wildlife has also aided liberty by keeping alive the 19th century sense of adventure and awe with which our forefathers greeted the American West. Many laws protecting environmental quality have promoted liberty by securing property against the destructive trespass of pollution. In our own time, the nearly universal appreciation of these preserved landscapes, restored waters, and cleaner air through outdoor recreation is a modern expression of our freedom and leisure to enjoy the wonderful life that generations past have built for us.

When we protect the places where the processes of life can flourish, we strengthen not only the future of medicine, agriculture and industry, but also the essential conditions for peace and prosperity.

I was interested in the environment from when I was a little kid. I spent most of my time hunting and fishing and kayaking.