Author Index for Environmental Quotations
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
Carolyn Raffensperger
Human breast milk one of the most contaminated food sources
Kathleen Raine
the adoration of the trees
Obedient to one living pulse
the wild world, overturned
they bear the weight of sky and cloud
the trees tremble in their sleep
Rep. George Radanovich
toxic sludge is good for fish
Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
Thanksgiving is a typically American
holiday
James Randerson
scientists have increasingly questioned the sustainability of biofuels
Robert Rans
You know that we are
living in a material world
Larry L. Rasmussen
it is a wonder that we live at all
William Rathje,
the problem is finding significant
outlets
one of the largest man-made
structures in North America
the most appealing of all the
possible approaches
Dixy Lee Ray
Trashing the Planet
Ronald Reagan
A tree's a tree
tree cause more pollution
Paul Recer
algae to make hydrogen gas on demand
Charles A. Reich
they pulverize everything in their
path
Kenneth Reich
in the Los Angeles area the landscape
rises and falls more than 4 inches each year
Marc Reisner
plains states were devouring capital
Chief Rekayi
I am married to this land
Michael Renner
Rethinking the Role of the
Automobile
As water becomes scarce
the emergence of both wind and solar
cells
equivilant to smoking two packs of
cigarettes a day
fertilizer runoff in agricultural
regions
Robert Repetto
what we want our economy to
produce
Resource Recycling
4.4 pounds per person per day
Reuters News Service
one-fourth of disease was linked
to environmental factors
Water riots such as those in China
really big weather disasters have increased
four-fold
Japan landfill sites
almost full
Andrew C. Revkin
carbon can stay for many centuries
lost 82 percent of the icecap
40 percent of streams showed traces of
estrogen or other reproductive hormones
Rhode Island-size piece of the floating
ice fringe disintegrated
countless oil-streaked streets,
sputtering lawn mowers and other sources
blood
levels of mercury exceeding 5.8 parts per billion
3000 year old ice shelf breaks up in Arctic Canada
rising ocean temperatures caused by greenhouse gas
Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold
Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978)
Just a Little Rain
God bless the grass
Keith Richards
I can't get no
Jeremy Rifkin
draining the aliveness out of
things
The greenhouse crisis is the bill coming
due
Amy Rinard
landfills are being filled with trash
from Illinois, Minnesota and other states
Stacy & Paula Rinehart
work that is valued
Howard Ris
50 percent more global warming
pollution than cars
John Roach
confirm that a 500-year warming trend
accelerated
Greenland ice sheet is melting three times faster
Don Robinson
needs and greeds
Michael H. Robinson
because of poverty and greed
John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1839-1937)
men of immense wealth
Mike Roe
Something more that I don't need
Will Rogers (1879-1935)
How good we really are
to impress people they don't like
the poor house in an automobile
whenever you lose, you are ahead
David Rohn
Low-income minority residents are
most at risk
Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
riches prevents the majority from sharing the goods made for all
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
destroys its soil
undeserved poverty or self-serving
wealth
The test of our progress
Government
cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
The nation behaves well
A grove of giant redwoods
a man who skins the land
To rob by wasteful use
a country without trees
to skin and exhaust the land
every man far-sighted enough to
realize the importance
Ruth Rosen
de facto racism
Elisabeth Rosenthal
It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
All earth’s full rivers can not fill
Vincent Rossi
the ecology of one's body
Theodore Roszak
unholy infinities of desire
Jeffrey Rothfeder
conglomerates
began to quietly acquire control of the world's water systems
Linda Rothstein
The creation of each gram of
plutonium
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
having fenced in a piece of land
F. Sherwood Rowland
no clear idea of what the
meteorological consequences may be
Royal Bank of Canada
Selfishness or survival - which is it
to be?
William Ruckelshaus
Nature provides a free lunch
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
pictures of infinite beauty
a new weariness
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
prevents us from living freely and
nobly
John Russell (1792-1878)
to impress our neighbors
John F. Ruston
a base of materials for robust,
efficient manufacturing industries
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Kevin Sack
by far the most contaminated
community
Saint Paul Pioneer Press
reached as high as 111 degrees
exposing residents to high levels of
ultraviolet radiation
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944)
The desert is beautiful
The machine does not isolate us
Ian Sample
Confirming the worst fears of environmental scientists
Michael Samuels
Soaring
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
I am the grass; I cover all
George Santayana (1863-1952)
sobered by the truth of Nature
Jacqueline Savitz
industries send millions of pounds of waste materials to fertilizer companies
John Sawhill
be defined by what we refuse to
destroy
Eric V. Schaeffer
we seem about to snatch defeat from
the jaws of victory
Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984)
Pollution and the Death of Man
greed and haste
refuse men the right to ravish our land
no reference point beyond human egotism
it is not a zero
Jonathan Schell
The Fate of the Earth
Mark Schleifstein
The Gulf of Mexico's largest-ever
dead zone
Lisa Schirch
As U.S. citizens we have a choice
Eric Schlosser
an extremely
efficient system for spreading disease
regulations allow cattle to be fed dead poultry and
poultry to be fed dead cattle
Farmers
and cattle ranchers becoming hired hands for agribusiness giants
Tim Schowalter
The pests that plague us are of
our own making
E. F. (Ernst Friedrich) Schumacher (1911-1977)
begin to disarm greed and envy
the organic, the gentle, the
nonviolent, the elegant
modern industrial system consumes the
basis on which is has been erected
Barry Schwartz
do whatever makes the most money
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965),
Out of My Life and Thoughts
Circle of compassion
the idea of worthless human lives
He will end by destroying the earth
Jeremy Seabrook
What Went Wrong?
Ken Sehested
Feasting on the earth is not our sin
Neil Seldman
The solution to pollution is self-reliant cities and
counties
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5 BC 65 AD)
he who has little
will prove to you the presence of
deity
Ismail Serageldin
The wars of the twenty-first century
Josh Sevin
325 gallons of water are consumed per
person
Anna Sewell (1820-1878)
We call them dumb animals
There
is no religion without love
Sextus Propertius (c. 15 B.C.),
You, O money, are the cause of a
restless life!
Matthew Shaffer
With little monitoring of toxics in fertilizers our health are at risk
fertilizers are sold directly to the public and farmers without warnings
Shaker
Proverb
Hymn
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
sermons in stones
each man have enough
times of preservation
Smooth runs the water
If thou art rich, thou art poor
is the jay more precious than the lark
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
no more right to consume happiness
What would he say now?
Robinson Shaw
Dramatic Thinning of Arctic Ice Found
Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
adds to the frustrations and broken
minds of our times
Joseph Sheldon
who rules is the one who serves
the wrong side of God
Philip Sherrard (1923-1995)
we cripple and mutilate ourselves
This is our punishment
David E. Shi
The Simple Life
Hu Shih (1891-1962)
merely be at home with nature and at
peace with their lot
Elizabeth Shogren
Estimate of Fetuses Exposed to High Mercury Doubles
Bud Shuster
clean water is an investment
Ronald J. Sider
the adman is its prophet
share it with our sisters and
brothers
John Silber
It's lousy beer and even worse
theology
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
migrant workers breaking apart obsolete
computers from North America
Andrew Simms
bankrupt because of global warming Tom Sine
a new form of American colonization
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)
we should not try to prevent people
from murdering
In
relation to animals, all people are Nazis
Peter Singer
why is the hunter subject to more criticism?
Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)
as
if one tried to put out a fire with petrol
the cross of the world
Fred Small
I got so much sensation I can't feel a
thing
Christopher Smart (1722-1771)
For there is a
language of flowers
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
the sole end and purpose of all
production
J. Alfred Smith
The ethics of self-interest
J. Russell Smith (1874-1966)
a million hills green with
crop-yielding trees
William Smith
to adopt different lifestyles
Socrates (B.C. 469-399)
Contentment is natural wealth
who is not contented with what he
has
Paolo Soleri
Pauperization
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Crowded planet
chasing after what is cheap
Susan Sontag
an insult to the possibilities of
human growth
G. Soucie
the real conflict of the beach is not
between sea and shore
Alexander Smith (1830-1867)
he plants it for posterity
Patrick Spears
Indigenous peoples have provided the
lands and energy resources
the rivers are the lifeblood of the
land
Max Spendlove
energy sources of the future!
Bruce Springsteen
Those are the booby prizes
Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)
how much we enjoy
Nature outside his window is
calling him to health
You shall find books and sermons everywhere
Robert Stafford
consistent with the trend of rising
temperatures
State of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
the listing of TCDD as a known
human carcinogen
Lewis M. Steel
If one area heats up a little too much
Bill Steele
Garbage
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
A strange species we are
Sandra Steingraber
carcinogenic environmental
contaminants
breast cancer rates
environmentally caused cancers
Any respectable recycling program
PCBs will continue to insinuate
themselves into the food chain for decades
I have always been a big advocate of
tap water
the most intimate relationship with
our public drinking water
The fact did not reassure me
occupations involving pesticides
had twice the risk of cleft lips and palates
compared Agent Orange in Vietnam to
the Romans' salting Carthage
Toxic emissions reported account
for only 5 percent of all releases
scooping garbage into an oven and setting it afire is primitive
incinerators only transform
garbage, they don’t provide final resting place
The indestructibility of matter reigns
supreme
Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)
it can be a means of reassuring
ourselves of our sanity
if we permit the last virgin
forests to be turned into comic books
Gil Stern
man is a complex being
Brooks Stevens
planned obsolescence
Cat Stevens a.k.a Yusuf
where do the children play?
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
Trees, proud standing people
William K. Stevens
a record for winter warmth
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
There must be other less cruel ways
of obtaining knowledge
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Consequences
Stockholm United Nations Conference on the Environment
Only One Earth
William Stolzenburg
less than 2 percent flow free
John R.W. Stott
vanguard of the movement for
environmental responsibility
Samuel Strauss (1870-1953)
science of compelling men to use
more and more things
Karen Studders
This time, we ourselves have to be
responsible
Lawrence Summers
countries in Africa are vastly
underpolluted
Gordon Matthew Sumner (Sting)
I would be burning the rain forest
Curt Suplee
the planet's surface suddenly began to
heat up faster
warmest three-month period in the past 106
years of record keeping
the largest die-off of coral in modern
times
Aparna Surendran
when air pollution levels go up
increase deaths and hospital admissions
Roger B. Swain
ten calories spent for every calorie we
swallow
destructive power of salt
Swedish proverb
the old bucket
Leonard Sweet
one life-form annihilating other
life-forms
Two opposing gospels
hole in the ozone
The future is a decision
Jesus pioneered a relationship ethic based on compassion
People who minister to protect the environment
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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
This is nothing but thy love
Trees are the earth's endless effort
The greed of gain has no time or
limit
Dr. DeWitt Talmage
dumb beasts whose moans have been
a prayer to God
The Talmud
Every blade of grass
Aaron Tate
nothing that I need
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)
foolish to think this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance
Theodore B. Taylor
provides amply for our needs, yet
limits our greed
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
this palpable world is a holy place
William Temple (1881-1944)
persistent appeal to covetousness
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Our body has this defect
Mother Teresa (1910-1997)
I only feel angry when I see waste
Thales of Miletus (6th century B.C.)
Justice
Paul Theroux
The Mosquito Coast
Cal Thomas
prosperity without a soul
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Acquaintance with nature
A man is rich
Superfluous wealth
If a man walks in the woods
walk in the woods makes sweet
neutral ground
I went to the woods because I wished to
live deliberately
Sell your clothes and keep your
thoughts
This curious world which we inhabit
What good is a house
Heaven
The cost of a thing
rub against it and make sure of their footing
a dead pine is no more a pine than a
dead human carcass is a man
We need the tonic of wilderness
God must smile at his puny fences
Blessed are those who never read a newspaper
lay waste the sky
as God sees them, all things are alive and beautiful
the farmer leads the meanest of lives
Who ever saw his old clothes actually worn out
Pierre Tielhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
the energies of love
David Tillman
a world we really don't want
John Tillotson (1630-1694)
Wealth
Alex de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
lose all self-restraint at the sight of
new possessions
Democracy encourages a taste for
physical gratification
to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man
Klaus Toepfer
an unsustainable course
the razzmatazz of consumerism
first class assessments of the soaring
temperatures the world is facing
the cocktail is proving lethal
Alvin Toffler
Industrial vomit
Mostafa Tolba
water will be the critical issue
Mike Toner
$150
billion weather-related losses the insurance industry must cover worldwide
The Toronto Globe and Mail
it is priceless, but act as if it were
absurdly cheap
threaten coral reefs, spread
malaria and cause shrubs to sprout in Alaska
would raise global sea levels by about
five metres
A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
the essence of sin
Russell E. Train
The will of God
Jacob Trapp (1899-1992)
even apologized to a tree
Ian Traynor
nuclear waste is being piped
straight into the environment
Todd True
salmon only have one river forever
Elton Trueblood (1900-1994)
We cannot change the past
the meaning of human life when he
plants shade trees
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)
combined to produce a prevailing
materialism
Mark Twain a.k.a. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910)
a limitless multiplication
lower animals
it will content your spirit
pick up a starving dog
call an animal dumb
Money is God
water is for fightin'
The face of the water became a wonderful
book
Everybody talks about the weather
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U.S. bumper sticker, 1
U.S. bumper sticker, 2
U.S. 88th Congress
secure the benefits of an enduring
resource of wilderness
U.S. Catholic Bishops
living our faith in relationship
with all of God's creation
It is about our responsibility to those
who come after us
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
one-fifth of America's food goes to
waste each year
U.S. Department of Energy
the most important environmental issue
facing mankind
the most beneficial alternative for
reducing greenhouse gases
130.1 quadrillion BTUs
higher by 730 thousand barrels per day
renewable energy technologies is
projected to grow slowly
Carbon dioxide emissions from energy use
are projected to increase
U.S. Energy Information Administration
more coal and less petroleum and natural gas
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
a particularly large impact on the
natural environment
U.S. House of Representatives
cleaning waste sites is estimated to
cost an additional $151-195 billion
U.S. Water News Online
untreated groundwater aquifers
Stewart L. Udall
look to the land from which you came and
to which you go
We really don't have a policy
most common trait of all primitive peoples
Mark D. Uehling
The contaminants come from our
bladders
Chris Uhl
the land at our doorstep provides the
starting point
Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
every bit has spiritual
significance
eternal love at
work
United Nations Environmental Sabbath Program
We need to rest and allow the earth to
rest
University of California, Berkeley
sus.tain’a.bil’i.ty
The Taittiriya Upanisad (600 B.C.)
From joy springs all creation
John Updike
Rain is grace
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Colleen Valles
dumped 48,000 55-gallon drums of
radioactive waste west of the Golden Gate Bridge
Fred Van Dyke
who rules is the one who serves
the wrong side of God
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)
he provideth a kindness
Raoul Vaneigem
In
the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king
We are condemned to slavery to the means of
liberation
Molly Vargas
Peruvian glaciers below 18,000 feet will
disappear by 2015
Susan Jezik Varlamoff
With Mother Earth in peril
Michael Vatalaro
11.6 billion pounds of sewage
sludge each year
Bill Vaughn
bulldozes out the trees
Stevie Ray Vaughn (1954-1990)
caught in the crossfire
Jesse "The Body" Ventura
environmental problems come from our
own actions
Gore Vidal
Either
the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die
John Vidal
U.S. knows conventional oil is running out fast
Marq de Villiers
no one "owns" water
90 percent of Africans still dig for
their water
there is trouble with water
a child dies every eight seconds from
drinking contaminated water
potable water is diminishing in all
countries
this is the beginning of the end
it is overly salty
signs of the imminent Apocalypse
Virgil (70-19 B.C.)
before we plow an unfamiliar patch
Paul A. Volcker
The recycling process has worked
smoothly
Kurt Vonnegut
We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of
denial
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Paul L. Wachtel
if it meant getting cancer within
the year
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Joy is not in
things
Loudon Wainwright
Doomsday
Richard Wainwright
a model of completion
Matthew L. Wald
renewable energy fell to lowest level in more than 12 years
Alice Walker
the nigger of the world
trees do everything to git attention
animals of the world exist for
their own reasons
the spiritual equivalent of oxygen
Nature is phasing out the white man
I think it pisses God off
Derek Wall
How to be green?
We are unravelling nature
Immanuel Wallerstein
What can be done?
Jim Wallis
worrying about not having enough
Brian Walsh
make possible the free praise of our creaturely kin
the covenant is with "every living creature"
there is no such thing as "away"
war
with the very biotic, genetic, chemical and physical structures of creation
only one voice gets heard
Barbara Ward (1914-1981)
We cannot cheat on DNA
Joan Ward-Harris
it is the cumulative effect that
matters
Rick Warren
Possessions only provide temporary happiness
We never actually own anything during our brief stay on earth
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
forests are a direct expression of
God's beauty
James Watt
Second coming
Nicholas Watt
scientists have increasingly questioned the sustainability of biofuels
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Imagine that!
Bill Watterson
if
your knees aren't green by the end of the day
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Footstool
all
that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care
Simone Weil (1909-1943)
Christ's tender smile coming through
matter
Gasoline much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict
Tim Weiner
one out of eight Mexicans
Rick Weiss
90% of all large ocean fish have disappeared
Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
In all his works my God I meet
John Wesley (1703-1791)
Money
every living creature on the face
of the earth
West African proverb
filthy water
Walter Weyl (1874-1917)
surplus of society overrides all
The end of it all is vexation of
spirit
E. B. White (1899-1985)
more time tasting her sweetness
Our approach to nature is to beat it
into submission
Gilbert F. White
Every intervention is taken in the face of partial ignorance
nearer to behaving as if it were indeed one family
the human race is a family
the future depends more on human behavior
a way that is harmonious with one's fellows
the rich fouling their own nests
the good news about fresh water is
reliance on benefit-cost analysis is one of the greatest threats
John White
slavish worshipers of abundance itself
We strip them of dignity in order to
load them with things
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Song of Myself
large and melodious thoughts descend
your very flesh shall be a great
poem
The earth does not argue
I lean and loafe at my ease
no less than the journeywork of the stars
satisfies me more than the metaphysics
of books
and over all, the
sky-the sky!
When I heard the learn’d astronomer
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Who sows a field is more than all
William Whyte
the most prodigal of people with land
John Wijngaards
the primal force from which the tree
drew its being
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
we all look at nature too much
Richard Wiles
industries send millions of pounds of waste materials to fertilizer companies
Ray Wilkinson
felled millions of trees in the previously virgin forests
Afghanistan is so short of wood
Dallas Willard
God himself loves the earth dearly
George Williams
Are we in the end conquerors of the
cosmos
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
God doesn't do "waste"
a real and vivid sense of that next generation
William H. Willimon
The supermarket and shopping mall have been our school
Duff Wilson
When consumers buy fertilizer, they don't know
what they're getting
kilns sent ash to farms raising the cancer risk for farm families
Edward O. Wilson
like burning a Renaissance painting
we have not yet fully understood
what we are doing
Steven C. Wilson
the "effects of too much
energy" crisis
Dr. Steven Wing
in areas that are poor and nonwhite
Wintu Woman
How can the spirit of the earth like the white man?
Tesunke Witko (1842?-1877)
One does not sell the earth
Colin Woodard
They were strip-mining the sea
Kenneth Woodward
sinned against the environment
John Woolman (1720-1772)
a tenderness to all creatures
success in business did not satisfy
the craving
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
The World Is Too Much With Us
One impulse from a vernal wood
Let Nature be your teacher
There is a blessing in the air
the living air and the blue sky
World Commission on Environment and Development
the ecological equivalent of the Golden
Rule
strategy for sustainable development aims to promote harmony
World Conservation Union
guiding rules are that people must share
Worldwatch Institute
system failures cause 95 percent of
the electricity outages
Excessive withdrawal of spring water to produce bottled water
industry added more capacity in wind than it did in coal and nuclear combined
Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
my manifestation of God
stay close to nature
Money has its limitations
John Wright
let business men carry pocketfuls of
acorns
Robert Wright
this is not a recipe for success
Stephen Wright
You can't have everything
Robert Wuthnow
we can decide to choose or to
reject
The sense that materialism has
gotten out of hand
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Malcolm X (1925-1965)
Truly a paradise could exist
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Philip Yancey
We may be forced to change our
profligate ways some day
Jim Yardley
Rio Grande is no longer strong enough
to reach the sea
Carol Kaesuk Yoon
penguin populations are declining
Cathy Yost
In our eagerness to prosper, we have
ravaged what was good
Edward Young (1683-1765)
Art of God
undevout astronomer
John E. Young
saving about one exajoule of energy
Margaret Young
live their lives backwards
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Zambian youngster
there is no future
Deborah Zabarenko
the warmest recorded on Earth's surface
Alan Zarembo
the crack cocaine of the developing world
Zen saying
chop wood carry
water
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