Environmental Stewardship Quotes

This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

The earth always belongs to the living.

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

Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.

There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbal of the great human principle.

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

One generation plants the trees. Another gets the shade.

Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.

The earth belongs in usufruct to the living.

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

But now sustainability is such a political category that it's getting more and more difficult to think about it in a serious way. Sustainability has become an ornament.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

I see humanity now as one vast plant, needing for its highest fulfillment only love, the natural blessings of the great outdoors, and intelligent crossing and selection.

I have my own orchard, and I also work with the Bloomington Community Orchard, which has been one of the best experiences of my life.

In my lifetime, I want to see humanity start being conscious of our waste, the things we buy, and how we can reuse and recycle things. I want people to live harmoniously with our planet. I hope everybody wakes up and appreciates life.

I have often thought that my work with wildlife taught me the meaning of patience, and my work with the big trees taught me the meaning of humility, and my work with the ice has taught me the meaning of mortality.

Water has always been a large part of my life, so for me now, being a father with another child on the way, I'm just teaching some of the small things I've been able to learn - and passing that onto the younger generation. Small things like turning your faucet off when you brush your teeth, not taking a 30-minute shower when you really don't need to. So I want to teach the younger generation to spread the message and make a difference. I'm almost more excited to do this than I was to swim.

Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It's about doing more good.

We must now become not just takers from the ocean, but caretakers of it.

If the tea party folks would go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God's sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they're being killed and our planet's being injured by what's happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That's something worth getting angry about.

Generations hence, parents will take their children to these woods to show them how the land must have looked to the first Pilgrims and pioneers. And as Americans wander through these forests, climb these mountains, they will sense the love and majesty of the Creator of all of that.

The planet is fine. The people are f****d. Because everyone is trying to save the planet. The planet doesn’t need that. The planet will take care of itself. People are selfish. And that's what they're doing is trying to save the planet for themselves to have a nicer place to live.

Every day, I get up, and I fill the bird feeders and put out fruit and other food for both the birds and any passing mammals. Is that pointless long-term? I have no idea. All I know is that on this day, in this moment, it makes a difference.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.