Fifteen of the Most Powerful, Most Beautiful Environmental Quotes You Will Ever Read.
Earth Day has passed for this year, but that doesn’t mean that we stop caring for the planet and the life it supports. In celebration of the fact that Earth day should be every day, I have collected fifteen of the most beautiful quotes from mankind, to mankind, and my thoughts on each quote. Feel free to note down your favourite ones (which, I believe, will be all of them).
1. We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. — Native American proverb
The Earth belongs to the future generations, and so we need to take care of the Earth if we are to pass on a planet to our children that has a healthy environment.
2. He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
In this quote Emerson highlights the bounties humankind, as well as other life forms, gain from the environment. In the environmental sphere, these bounties, known as ‘ecosystem services’ are the very reasons why protecting the environment has becoming an urgent agenda to address.
3. I’ve known rivers:/ I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. / My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
— Langston Hughes
This short poem oozes beauty, as well as a love for nature. It refers to Earth’s rivers, many of which are millions (yes, millions) of years old. The two lines that follow the first line are the killers, however: the second line alludes to the idea that the natural world has existed well before mankind, which serves to highlight its majesty and its wisdom that far outshines the majesty and wisdom of mankind. The last line, too, leaves you with a quiet silence, a silence that often accompanies the end of a haiku, and subconsciously threads humankind and nature together with the use of an elegant simile.
4. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. — William Shakespeare
It’s not an anthology if there’s not a quote or too by Shakespeare, and this one is effortless in its beauty and its meaning. It describes how nature connects not just people, but all things — plants, animals, even whole ecosystems — together. And its not just any old connection, too — its ‘kinsmanship’. I looked up the definition of ‘kinsmanship’ online, which described the word as a relationship that is more than friendship, more than love; there’s a sense of closeness and fierce loyalty, unspoken yet undeniable.
5. Green Puerto Rico, talkative and wild!
That you seem to think as if you were human;
You talk as if you were the expression of the landscape,
Of the moods of the rolling hills and of the plains.
— José Antonio Dávila
The personification of nature here is just what we need. Perhaps one reason why we are deface and destroy the Earth is because we perceive it as an entity that does not feel pain or emotion. But if we shift out thinking a little and take it so that we see it as one living, breathing system, perhaps we would be more inclined to treat it with the respect it deserves. Though the quote refers to Puerto Rico, I think its apt for many a place on Earth.
6. “We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.” — Barbara Ward
Ward doesn’t fail to highlight a couple of facts in this quote. First, we are not inhabitants of this Earth; we are merely its guests. Second, as guests we have crossed the line. Instead of wearing indoor slippers, we have stepped on the carpet with our outside shoes, placed our feet on the coffee table and raided the fridge without asking. We are not showing the etiquette that Earth’s other guests have shown, and that’s a pretty depressing thought.
7. Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge; it’s common sense. — President Ronald Reagan
This quote hits the nail on the head for me. Any person, community or nation would see a burning house and know straight away, through the power of common sense, to put out the fire. Then why are we labelling such common sense as a challenge that needs to be addressed in good time instead of being addressed straight away?
8. “The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” — Gaylord Nelson
Here Nelson states the need for us to act selflessly and sustainably, to think about future generations who will undoubtedly perish should we continue to damage Earth and its ecosystems.
9. “He that plants trees loves others besides himself.” — Thomas Fuller
Planting a tree now won’t give the planter any immediate benefits, but in twenty years’ time, that tree will provide shade, supplement an ecosystem and sequester carbon for the benefit of multiple living organisms.
10. “Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs, —
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress its music.”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
There is something freeing, something totally natural about nature. It’s a massive contrast to ‘men and towns’ — most man-made things just feel synthetic and processed, but with nature, the authenticity and organic-ness can be felt everywhere.
11. If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos. — E. O. Wilson
Here Wilson seems to allude to the concept of rewilding — the process whereby land is restored to its natural, uncultivated state through nature-driven processes and with little to no human intervention. Wilson also highlights how humans are not, ecologically, an important species on Earth, but rather, Earth would thrive in the absence of humans. In comparison, insects are ridiculously vital to most if not all of Earth’s ecosystems, and the survival of the environment is contingent on their existence.
12. The Silence of a shut park does not sound like the country silence: it is tense and confirmed. — Elizabeth Bowen
Make of this what you will.
13. High quality water is more than the dream of the conservationists, more than a political slogan; high quality water, in the right quantity at the right place at the right time, is essential to health, recreation, and economic growth. — Edmund S. Muskie
Water pollution seems to be a topic that is not talked about enough. Run-off from the incessant, superfluous use of pesticides as well as dumping of industrial waste has severely reduced the quality of our water. As water nourishes every life form on Earth, this should be higher on our priority list.
14. To halt the decline of an ecosystem, it is necessary to think like an ecosystem. — Douglas P. Wheeler
Our failure to support ecosystems ultimately comes from our failure to understand the drivers of an ecosystem. Once we have a better grasp of this, we can start combating ecosystem decline in a much more effective manner.
15. It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. ― Ansel Adams
This is perhaps the most powerful quote in this list. Many governments are driven by politics and economics, rather than following the observations and calculations made by science. Governments are more concerned about holding onto this fossil-fuel powered consumerist lifestyle that we have grown accustomed to, without realising that if we continue on this path, not only will we face ecological and environmental collapses, but also an economic collapse.
And there you go! For me, quotes 3 and 4 take the crowns. Which ones were your favourites?
