Inspirational Quotes To Change the World:
Green Living, Minimalism, Natural Parenting, Social Change
“People will always try to stop you from doing the right thing if it is unconventional.” ~ Warren Buffett
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” ~ Gary Snyder
“Change is upon us. We can choose to see it as frightening and incapacitating, or we can embrace the opportunities and move forward with hope towards a more sustainable world.” ~ Wendy Priesnitz
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.” ~ William Blake
“The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.” ~ Wendell Berry
“We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.” ~ Terri Swearingen
“Information is like compost; it does no good unless you spread it around.” ~ Eliot Coleman
“Green is a process, not a status. We need to think of 'green' as a verb, not an adjective.” ~ Daniel Goleman
“Simplifying your life is about gaining control of your life – creating more time, on the job and at home, to do the things you want to do. It is about streamlining your life so you have time for the people and things you love.” ~ Wendy Priesnitz
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~ Buckminster Fuller
“The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.” ~ Bill Mollison
“Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body.” ~ George Carlin
“We need to move beyond the idea of 'environment' and fall back in love with Mother Earth.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.” ~ Wendell Berry
“What is the use of a house if you don’t have a decent planet to put it on?” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Be the change you wish to see in the world” ~ Gandhi
“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” ~ Arundhati Roy
“Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” ~ Pogo author, Walt Kelly
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ~ Albert Einstein
“The sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away.” ~ Stephanie Mills
“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
“There is no way to re-enchant our lives in a disenchanted culture except by becoming renegades from that culture and planting the seeds for a new one.” ~ Thomas Moore
“There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen
“Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it…one step at a time.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman
“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.” ~ Bill Vaughn
“Action is the best antidote to despair.” ~ Joan Baez
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” ~ Martin Luther King
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.” ~ Lily Tomlin
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” ~ Albert Einstein
“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.” ~ Joanna Macy
“The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.” ~ Archibald MacLeish
“In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources, and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy, and peace.” ~ Wangari Maathai
“It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What's needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take ‘everyone on Earth’ to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“The time has come to lower our voices, to cease imposing our mechanistic patterns on the biological processes of the earth, to resist the impulse to control, to command, to force, to oppress, and to begin quite humbly to follow the guidance of the larger community on which all life depends.” ~ Thomas Berry
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” ~ E.F. Schumacher
“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.” ~ Joanna Macy
“Permaculture is revolution disguised as gardening.” Mike Feingold
“Clearly, we need to find ways to use less energy rather than just shifting from producing more using a different industrial process. There are some innovators doing that, including in the green building industry. But we have a long way to go. And the job starts with us in our every day lives.” ~ Wendy Priesnitz
“When people ask me what to do, I tell them to just give the child all the love that they can. Don't worry so much about anything else. And when it comes to discipline: never, never physically assault the child in any way, and certainly don't assault them with words, which can be just as cruel as physical punishment.” ~ Ashley Montagu
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” ~ Albert Einstein
“When we heal the earth, we heal ourselves.” ~ David Orr
“The trouble with simple living is that, though it can be joyful, rich, and creative, it isn't simple.” ~ Doris Janzen Longacre
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ~ Krishnamurti
“Ecology speaks for the Earth, for the 'other' in human/environmental relationships; feminism speaks for the `other' in female/male relations. Ecofeminism, by speaking for both the original 'other's', seeks to understand the interconnected roots of all domination, as well as ways to resist and change. The ecofeminist's task is one of developing the ability to take the place of the 'other' when considering the consequences of possible actions, and ensuring that we do not forget that we are all part of one another.” ~ Judith Plant
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.” ~ Rachel Carson
“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” ~ Navajo proverb
“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The tragedy of life is not death, rather, it is what we allow to die within us while we live.” ~ Norman Cousins
“Do you think we can keep doing this without paying a price?” ~ Barbara Kingsolver
“The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.” ~ E.F. Schumacher
“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.” ~ P. J. O’Rourke
“Because we have learned to believe negativity is more realistic, it appears more real than any positive voice.” ~ bell hooks
“The only measure by which we will be judged by the people who come after is the health of the land base, because that is what is going to support them. They are not going to give a shit whether or not we were pacifists; they are not going to give a shit if we supported Israel or we didn't support Israel; whether we voted Green or Democrat or Republican or not at all. What they are going to care about is whether they can drink the water, whether they can breathe the air, whether the land can support them.” ~ Derrick Jensen
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
“When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” ~ Wendy Priesnitz
“Reducing our levels of consumption will not be a sacrifice but a bonus if we simply redefine the meaning of the word ‘success.” ~ David Wann
“Public education reflects our society's paternalistic, hierarchical worldview, which exploits children in the same way it takes the earth's resources for granted.” ~ Wendy Priesnitz
“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 future of our children is a trust we have been given. To conserve and grow, not to squander wastefully on needless excesses. The earth is a trust, to protect and to honor. Our home, our livelihood, our future rests in the quality of our stewardship. Let us become better stewards.” ~ Dr. Helen Caldicott
“Our cultural dilemma has nothing to do with children who don't read very well. It lies instead in the difficulty of finding a way to restore meaning and purpose to modern life.” ~ John Taylor Gatto
“People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.” ~ Wendell Berry
“When one tugs at a single thing in Nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” ~ John Muir
“Those who have most at stake in the old culture, or are most rigid in their beliefs, try to summon people back to the old ideas.” ~ Marilyn Ferguson
“Wildness we might consider as the root of the authentic spontaneities of any being. It is that wellspring of creativity whence comes the instinctive activities that enable all living beings to obtain their food, to find shelter, to bring forth their young: to sing and dance and fly through the air and swim through the depths of the sea.” ~ Thomas Berry
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Only after people express their anger and sadness over the broken dreams of material prosperity will they turn to the task of building a sustainable economy.” ~ Duane Elgin
“Action isn’t a burden to be hoisted up and lugged around on our shoulders. It is something we are. The work we have to do can be seen as a kind of coming alive. More than some moral imperative, it’s an awakening to our true nature, a releasing of our gifts.” ~ Joanna Macy
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” ~ William James
“Nobody did a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” ~ Edmund Burke
“High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us?” Annita Manning
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” ~ Wendell Berry
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.” ~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama
“By now I have come to feel that the fact of being a ‘child,’ of being wholly subservient and dependent, of being seen by older people as a mixture of expensive nuisance, slave, and super-pet, does most young people more harm than good.” ~ John Holt
“The adrenaline rush that accompanies fear is addictive and it crowds out reason. That’s why it is used to sell newspapers, wars, prescription drugs, pesticide spraying, weapons in outer space and political candidates. Tell people they are in danger and they will do what you want them to.” ~ Wendy Priesnitz
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” ~ Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
“I can't help noting that no cultures in the world that I have ever heard of make such a fuss about children's bedtimes, and no cultures have so many adults who find it so hard either to go to sleep or wake up. Could these social facts be connected? I strongly suspect they are.” ~ John Holt
“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.” ~ Michael Pollan
“We are learning that the earth functions like an invisible organism. We are the various cells of one living being. Those who work to save the earth are its antibodies." ~ Jeremy Rifkin
“While it’s good that we maintain high standards for companies seeking to claim environmental leadership, I can’t help but ponder the hypocrisy of it all: how much more we expect of companies than of ourselves.” ~ Joel Makower
“We are making choices that will affect whether beings thousands of generations from now will be able to be born sound of mind and body.” ~ Joanna Macy
“I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?” ~ Robert Redford
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order; and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it.” ~ Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince
“Coming out of the trance of denial is painful. But crises offer us opportunities to rethink our lives. The best thing about despair is that it wakes us up. We can see the world more clearly and open to new possibilities...And we can find new joy in the ordinary.” ~ Mary Pipher
“Pessimism is reactionary because it makes the very idea of improving the world impossible.” ~ George Orwell
“A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.” ~ John Sawhill
“After the final no there comes a yes. And on that yes, the future world depends.” ~ Wallace Stevens
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