Wangari Maathai Quotes

If you stop and you think about everything we hold of value on this planet, metal, minerals, energy, real estate, the things that nations fight wars over. These things are in near infinite quantities out there.

Fertile soil, level plains, easy passage across the mountains, coal, iron, and other metals imbedded in the rocks, and a stimulating climate, all shower their blessings upon man.

I have very large ideas about the mineral wealth of the nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible.

Land is not merely soil.

The area inside the Arctic Circle contains 8 percent of the earth’s surface and 15 percent of its land…. The Arctic produces 40 percent of the world’s palladium, 20 percent of its diamonds, 15 percent of its platinum, 11 percent of its cobalt, 10 percent of its nickel, 9 percent of its tungsten, and 8 percent of its zinc.

I think most Coloradans would agree that our state is the most beautiful in the nation, and the water flowing through our borders is its life blood.

Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.

It helps to think of soil as a living organism covered with skin like a human. We can live with a certain percentage of our skin damaged, but if too high a percentage is damaged, we die. So, too, does soil and thus most life

What I think is the most important thing to learn about any instrument is the basics of music. Learn your ABCs before you write a Hemingway novel.

I think that it's very important to have the United States' engagement in many situations we have around the world, be it in Syria, be it in the African context. The United States represents an important set of values, human rights, values related to freedom, to democracy. And so the foreign policy engagement of the United States is a very important guarantee that those values can be properly pursued.

The important thing is to learn through experience. The more you do the more you learn. I don't think anyone can teach acting from a podium.

It is very important not to think about losing.

It's an important moment as a reader, I think, when you can forget the question of whether you need to know what happened. Some people really want hard explanations. I'm the other way. I like mysteries. I don't want to frustrate people. I don't want people to feel like they got no answers, but I want to approach the mystery and sit with it.

I think that any important educational goal can be realized via several routes.

I think it's important to know yourself before you try to deal with a relationship.

I certainly think it's important to speak up and say how unacceptable Donald Trump is. I'm always more than willing to do that.

I work at a record label where I have archives. These things [memorabilia] occurred and are important to somebody, and they're important to me. I find the record industry largely repellent. This music, the Teen Idles, all of that stuff, is important to me. I don't have lawyers, an agent or a manager. However I find the music industry largely repellent. I just make records because that's what I love to do. So I think that era, those pieces of media, I keep in my collection.

Some of the greatest directors never got an Oscar, like Kubrick, or Hitchcock. For me, personally, I think the body of work is more important than winning an Oscar.

I'm always "shopping," because I think it's important to know what's out there.

I think it’s a wonderful view that care was important – but I think you can make a one-off and not care and you can make a million of something and care. Whether you really care or not is not driven by how many of the products you’re going to make.

To be honest, I don't necessarily think you have to be an actor to act. You don't have to be a musician to make great music. If it comes along and you put your all into it, the outcome is what's important.

I think that deprecation part is a very important aspect because when someone looks into themselves, if they're going to be honest, they're going to see parts that are humiliating as well as parts that they might feel really great about. Take Lucas Samaras again, who made a lot of self-portraits. He makes one self-portrait where he is looking directly into the camera and looks so intense and cool. He says in an interview, "I wanted to present the best version of myself."

When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?

There is a major problem of unsustainability of our environment, and we're seeing it in our natural resources, peak oil is probably upon us, and it can't be sustained. We're on an unsustainable path, and at this point in history we are responsible for that. We're going to have to change our ways. We're going to have to think through this problem.

I think one thing for sure that you learn the more films that you make is how important it is to choose your collaborators.