Wendell Berry Quotes

I haven't inherited the earth from my parents, I am borrowing it from my children.

The World is not ours to keep. We hold it in trust for future generations.

God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.

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

I think about the world that we leave behind for our children.

I often quote an African proverb that says: "The world is not ours, the earth is not ours, It's a treasure we hold in trust for future generations." And I often hope we will be worthy of that trust.

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.

All of us should be involved in our own futures to create a world that our children will want to live in.

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.

The future of our children is a trust we have been given. To conserve and grow, not to squander wastefully on needless excesses. The earth is a trust, to protect and to honor. Our home, our livelihood, our future rests in the quality of our stewardship. Let us become better stewards.

If we pass on an unsustainable environment to our children we have failed them.

We have an obligation to live in harmony with creation, with our capital... with God's creation. And we need to administer and work that very carefully.

We owe at least this much to future generations, from whom we have borrowed a fragile planet called Earth.

My efforts in Congress are guided by the belief that environmental preservation and restoration are a critical part of the legacy we leave to future generations.

We must all live so that our children do not have to pay for our deeds.

I gone on for years about the importance of thinking about the long term in relation to the environmental damage, climate change, and everything else because we don’t want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren and I do not want to be confronted by my future grandchild saying, “Well why didn’t you do something?”

When you run a company, you want to hand it off in better shape than you found it. In the same way, just as we shouldn't leave our children or grandchildren with mountains of national debt and unsustainable entitlement programs, we shouldn't leave them with the economic and environmental costs of climate change.

Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children.

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 believe so strongly that you always need to leave things better than you found it.

When I think about my legacy, I think about the world that we leave behind for our children.

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.

The most important question we must ask ourselves is, 'Are we being good ancestors?'

We have to show leadership in protecting our environment so that we have a future for our children and grandchildren.