Quotes about ecology

"It's a morbid observation, but if every one on earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem."

Adler, Jerry on ecology
3 fans of this quote   

"Ecology is rather like sex -- every new generation likes to think they were the first to discover it."

Allaby, Michael on ecology   

"The current collapse of industrial society may well be the planet's way of avoiding a larger death."

Bergman, Morris on ecology   

"Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom."

Bookchin, Murray on ecology   

"As soils are depleted, human health, vitality and intelligence go with them."

Bromfield, Louis on ecology   

"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands."

Ellis, Havelock on ecology
3 fans of this quote   

"The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying."

Hoagland, Edward on ecology   

"O if we but knew what we do when we delve or hew -- hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender to touch, her being so slender, that like this sleek and seeing ball but a prick will make no eye at all, where we, even where we mean to mend her we end her, when we hew or delve: after-comers cannot guess the beauty been."

Hopkins, Gerard Manley on ecology   

"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain."

James, William on ecology   

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"We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction that if we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable."

Kelly, Petra on ecology   

"It is our task in our time and in our generation to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours."

Kennedy, John F. on ecology   

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Leopold, Aldo on ecology   

"The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison."

Marx, Karl on ecology   

"We won't have a society if we destroy the environment."

Mead, Margaret on ecology   

"Obviously, the answer to oil spills is to paper-train the tankers."

Nader, Ralph on ecology   

"Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off."

Patten, Chris on ecology   

"We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

Proverb, Native American on ecology
6 fans of this quote   

"The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself."

Roosevelt, Franklin D. on ecology   

"Guns have metamorphosed into cameras in this earnest comedy, the ecology safari, because nature has ceased to be what it always had been -- what people needed protection from. Now nature tamed, endangered, mortal -- needs to be protected from people."

Sontag, Susan on ecology   

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

Swift, Jonathan on ecology   

"The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe."

Vries, Peter De on ecology
3 fans of this quote   

"How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It's really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here's the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life."

Wall, Derek on ecology   

"We cannot cheat on DNA. We cannot get round photosynthesis. We cannot say I am not going to give a damn about phytoplankton. All these tiny mechanisms provide the preconditions of our planetary life. To say we do not care is to say in the most literal sense that we choose death."

Ward, Dame Barbara on ecology