Pete Seeger Quotes

Caring about the environment has always been a big part of my life. When you grow up in a really beautiful place and you hear that it is jeopardised you want to do something.

When you take on something like your footprint on the environment, you have to say, 'Where am I going to draw the circle around my level of responsibility and then where do I assume that others will take responsibility?'

Our next Cold War ought to be with ourselves...After all, who poses the biggest danger to the American environment? We do.

It's essential that we understand that taking care of the planet will be done as we take care of ourselves. You know that you can't really make much of a difference in things until you change yourself.

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.

I love this world ... That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was in when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn't stop me from doing what I can but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It's like trying to stem a storm with one's bare hands.

So, what we do as individuals matters. It adds up.

If we lived within our means - by being prudent - the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species.

I could live in a community like 'Fortitude.'

We must cultivate a universal responsibility toward each other and extend it to the planet that we have to share

In every bio-region, one of the most urgent tasks is to rebuild the community of naturalists - so radically depleted in recent years, as young people have spent less time in nature, and higher education has placed less value on such disciplines as zoology……The times are right for the return of the amateur, twenty-first-century, citizen naturalist. To be a citizen naturalist is to take personal action, to both protect and participate in nature.

Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.

The only clear thing is that we humans are the only species with the power to destroy the earth as we know it. The birds have no such power, nor do the insects, nor does any mammal. Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, do we have the capacity to protect it.

Humankind has no option but to protect and live in harmony with its natural environment. However, it would be regrettable if in putting an end to revolutionary extremism, we should then come to environmental extremism. We should not forget that all extremes are the same.

I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough.

After all, the world is not our handiwork, and we are not responsible for what goes on in it, save within very narrow limits.

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.

This beautiful Earth that we have, this gift that the Universe has given us is precious beyond measure, precious beyond imagination, and we are part of it and we must treat it with Love, respect, and reverence.

It drives me crazy to see so much of this planet's life so casually endangered. The first steps are so easy (drive smaller cars, for instance) that it's very hard to understand why we haven't taken them. But I know that this is the issue our generation will be judged by.

We all, parents, educators, community leaders, and every... citizen, need to come together to find new ways to engage children with the natural environment.

It's a beautiful book [Into the Forest], so for those who are thinking about reading it, they absolutely should. First and foremost, I just devoured it, as a story. At that time, and still, it just encompassed a lot of things that I was thinking about, and that the world is thinking about, with society's relationship to the environment, our personal relationship to it, and how disconnected we are from it, myself included.

I had assumed that the Earth, the spirit of the Earth, noticed exceptions-those who wantonly damage it and those who do not. But the Earth is wise. It has given itself into the keeping of all, and all are therefore accountable.

Without a complex knowledge of one's place and without the faithfulness to one's place on which such knowledge depends, it is inevitable that the place will be used carelessly, and eventually destroyed. Without such knowledge and faithfulness, moreover, the culture of a country will be superficial and decorative, functional only insofar as it may be a symbol of prestige, the affectation of an elite or "in" group.

If religion and science could be united on the common ground of biological conservation, the problem would be soon solved. If there is any moral precept shared by people of all beliefs, it is that we owe ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment.