Land Ethic Quotes
“The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
-Aldo Leopold, forester, conservationist, educator and writer
“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”
-Wendell Berry, writer, cultural and economic critic, and farmer.
“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike.”
-John Muir, naturalist and author
“Devoted though we must be to the conservation cause, I do not believe that any of us should give it all of our time or effort or heart. Give what you can, but do not burn yourselves out -- or break your hearts. Let us save at least half of our lives for the enjoyment of this wonderful world which still exists. Leave your dens, abandon your cars and walk out into the great mountains, the deserts, the forests, the seashores.
Those treasures still belong to all of us. Enjoy them to the full, stretch your legs, expand your lungs, enliven your hearts -- and we will outlive the greedy swine who want to destroy it all in the name of what they call GROWTH. God bless America -- let's save some of it. Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet!”
-Edward Abbey, author
“All of life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr., clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights
Movement
“Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.”
-Jane Goodall, primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace
“The environment isn't over here. The environment isn't over there. You are the environment.”
-Chief Oren Lyons, Native American Indian leader
“The earth and its resources belong of right to its people”
-Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service
“The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.”
-Elizabeth I of England
“Mother planet is showing us the red warning light. ‘Be careful’ she is saying. To take care of the planet is to take care of our own house.”
-Dalai Lama of Tibet
“The Earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”
-Chief Seattle, Native American Indian leader

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”
-Mohandas K. Gahndi, Indian leader
“I grew up in the country, which is probably why I'm so attached to the land. I love it. I love the lay of the land. I love walking the land. And I love knowing that it's my land.”
-Oprah Winfrey, television personality
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
-John Muir, naturalist and author
“Nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates; and the length of fibre in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. But the machine man driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself.”
-John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“How astonishing it is, that a man should be so evil as to break a branch off a tree, after eating his fill.”
-Buddha
“So when you say environment, or preservation of environment, it is related with many things. Ultimately the decision must come from the human heart, isn't that right? So I think the key point is genuine sense of universal responsibility which is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
-The Dalai Lama
“I am interested in the way that a man looks at a given landscape and takes possession of it in his blood and brain. For this happens, I am certain, in the ordinary motion of life. None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable. We have sooner or later to come to terms with the world around us – and I mean especially the physical world, not only as it is revealed to us immediately through our senses, but also as it is perceived more truly in the long turn of seasons and of years. And we must come to moral terms. There is no alternative, I believe, if we are to realize and maintain our humanity, for our humanity must consist in part in the ethical as well as in the practical ideal of preservation. And particularly here and now is that true. We Americans need now more than ever before – and indeed more than we know – to imagine who and what we are with respect to the earth and sky. I am talking about an act of the imagination, essentially, and the concept of an American land ethic.”
-N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer
"...I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use."
-Mother Teresa, Catholic leader
“There was an 87-year hiatus from the Declaration of Independence to the Emancipation Proclamation and the freeing of American blacks from slavery . . . the idea of an inalienable right of self-determination has moved with irresistible force to become what Jefferson claimed it was in 1776: a self-evident truth.
It is now nature’s turn to be liberated.”
Donald Worster, founder and instrumental figure in the field of Environmental History
“Nature, exuberant and splendid in this place of forests and lakes, impregnates spirits and hearts with its mystery and orients them spontaneously toward the mystery of He who is the author of life… The beauty of this land leads me to appeal its preservation for future generations. If you love our native land, do not let this appeal go unanswered!”
-Pope John Paul

“The Earth and myself are of one mind.”
Chief Joseph, Native American Indian leader
“We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.”
- Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner
“The important principle is that resources and environments serve economic functions and have positive value. To treat them as if they had zero value is seriously to risk overusing the resource...the important principle to establish is that in our economic accounting, in the weighing up of the pros and cons of capital investments and economic policies, we should try, as best we can, to record the economic values that natural environments provide.”
- Pearce, Markandya and Barber, Blueprint for a Green Economy
“The universe is the creation of the Supreme Power meant for the benefit of all creation. Each individual life form must, therefore, learn to enjoy its benefits by farming a part of the system in close relation with other species. Let not any one species encroach upon others rights.” –
-from Ishopanishad (one of the philosophical texts of Hinduism)
“All sentient beings, including the small insects, cherish themselves. All have the right to overcome suffering and achieve happiness. I therefore pray that we show love and compassion to all.” –
-The Dalai Lama of Tibet
“The first principle of conservation is development, the use of the natural resources now existing on this continent for the benefit of people who live here and now...In the second place, conservation stands for the prevention of waste...there is a third principle... Conservation means the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time.”
- Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service
“The idea that we are ‘stewards of the earth’ is another symptom of human arrogance. Imagine yourself with the task of overseeing your body's physical processes. Do you understand the way it works well enough to keep all its systems in operation? Can you make your kidneys function? Can you control the removal of waste? Are you conscious of the blood flow through your arteries, or the fact that you are losing a hundred thousand skin cells a minute? We are unconscious of most of our body's processes, thank goodness, because we'd screw it up if we weren't... The idea that we are consciously care-taking such a large and mysterious system is ludicrous.”
-Lynn Margulis, Biologist
“[Howard Odum] suggested that we needed to somehow decode the language of nature - how does the coral reef work, how does it sustain life, same with the forest, the prairie, etc. I would characterize my life as one of the first people to attempt to decode the language of nature and use it as a blueprint to design the infrastructure for human society.”
-John Todd, Biologist and leader in the field of Ecological Design
“Spirituality is the natural response to the totality of nature, of which we’re a part. For me, it is a felt relationship to nature, of which I recognize myself as a micro part of a macro whole.”
-Emett Gowin, Photographer
“I’m a great believer that [doing] something is greater than [doing] nothing, and it’s difficult once you find out information about the consequences of the fashion industry to turn a blind eye... One of my biggest passions on this side of my collection is that ‘eco’ shouldn’t be a word that immediately conjures up images of oatmeal-coloured garments or garments that are oversized or lacking in any sort of luxury or

beauty or detailing or desirability... there should be no compromises from the design point-of-view. Your products should not be compromised in any way just because they’re environmentally friendly.”
-Stella McCartney, Fashion Designer
“A culture that marginalizes the environment marginalizes people... As soon as you discount, ignore, or diminish life, you sow the seeds of economic dysfunction where income is polarized, assets are concentrated, and losers far outnumber winners, among whom are people, plants, places, and creatures...The question is: how did we create an economic system that tells us it is cheaper to destroy the earth and waste certain people than to honor both. Because those are the economic signals we act on every day, unconsciously or not. How did we become the only species without full employment? Can we design an economic system that offers abundant employment of family wage jobs? Easily. But that would require a country that wanted justice and fairness, where people would sacrifice their unending desires for the true needs of the whole.”
– Paul Hawken , Entrepreneur, Author, Environmentalist
“I don’t think the environmental movement is about telling people how to live because not everyone can put solar panels on their house. It’s just not a reality. But it is about just being aware of these global forces out there and being aware in the next election. Asking the right questions about what the next candidate’s environmental policy is. Of course personal action is very important, but until the powers that be truly infuse this into our daily way of living, I don’t think anything’s really going to change on a massive level.”
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Actor
“What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at a considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education. I do not think him fit to be the founder of a state or even of a town who does not foresee the use of these things, but legislates chiefly for oxen, as it were.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Author and Naturalist
“Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.”
-Richard M. Nixon
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
― Rachel Carson,
Silent Spring
“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
― Rachel Carson
“The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.”
― Rachel Carson

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
― Anne Frank,
The Diary of a Young Girl
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”
― Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House
“If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.”
― Jane Goodall
“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”
― Linda Hogan
“Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.
Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come”
― Wangari Maathai
"If you wish your children to think deep thoughts/ to know the holiest of emotions/ take them to the woods and hills/ and give them the freedom of the meadows/ The hills purify those who walk upon them.”
~Richard Jeffries
“So when you say environment, or preservation of environment, it is related with many things. Ultimately the decision must come from the human heart, isn't that right? So I think the key point is genuine sense of universal responsibility which is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
-The Dalai Lama