"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Time ... is growing short. Nature's machinery is being demolished at an accelerating rate, before humanity has even determined exactly how it works. Much of the damage is irreversible"
Paul Erhlich

"The soil is virtually a living organism. It's not just a bunch of grains with bugs walking through them. It is a mass of organic, living material in an organic matrix. It's dynamic. It's full of life. And it does not produce anything for human beings unless it's sustained in that living condition."
Edward O. Wilson

"The idea of wilderness needs no defence: it only needs defenders"
Edward Abbey

"One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken. "
Leo Tolstoy

"If we can see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change"
Buddha

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. "
Albert Einstein

"Interdependence is at the center of all things. The separation between us and nature is a mirage. The perception is the result of ignorance."
Ed McGaa

"There will come a time when the Earth grows sick and when it does a tribe will gather from all the cultures of the World who believe in deed and not words. They will work to heal it. They will be known as the "Warriors of the Rainbow.""
Cree Indian Proverb

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."
Martin Luther King Jr.

"Wasi'chu does not describe a race; it describes a state of mind. Wasi'chu is also a human condition based on inhumanity, racism, and exploitation. It is a sickness, a seemingly incurable and contagious disease which begot the ever advancing society of the West."
excerpt from Wasi'chu, The Continuing Indian Wars, Bruce Johansen and Robert Maestas

"Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love all the animals, love each separate thing. If you love everything, you will perceive the mystery of God in all."
Fyodoro Dostoevski

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."
Malcolm X

"Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology...has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents the slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again? The earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there."
William Commanda

"The goal of life is living in agreement with nature."
Zeno

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings."
Nelson Mandela

"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money."
Cree Indian Proverb

"Ahimsa means not to injure any creature by thought, word or deed, not even to the supposed advantage of this creature."
Mohandas K. Gandhi

"We may utilize the gifts of nature just as we choose but in her books the debits are always equal to the credits."
Mohandas K. Gandhi

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
Mohandas K. Gandhi

"If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys."
Chief Dan George

"Imagine our species as a village of 100 families. Then, 65 families in our village are illiterate, and 90 do not speak English, 70 have no drinking water at home, 80 have never flown in an air plane. Seven families own 60 percent of the land and consume 80 percent of all the energy. They have all the luxuries. Sixty families are crowded onto 10 percent of the land. Only one family has any member with a university education. And the air and the water, the climate and the blistering sunlight, are all getting worse."
From the book by Carl Sagan "Billions and Billions"

"We forget that the water cycle and life cycle are one."
Jacques Cousteau

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
Native American saying.

"Now, on quiet evenings by the river you won't hear a bullfrog sing. The riverbanks no longer give shelter to channel catfish, and the pike are gone from the river. There are no kingfishers flitting from twisted tree to twisted tree.

It wasn't the spearing and the nightlines that changed the place. Now, when I look up the river I see nothing but straight lines of concrete wall edging the shore. The weed beds are gone and in their place are docks on cement cribs beside little beaches made from truckloads of sand brought from far away places. The mystical pine and cedar bending out over the river have been cut down.

The people who live in the cottages think all this is fine. Their children and grandchildren think so too. How could they know anything different?

With my memories of years past, I want to sit on the bank of the Green River some morning as the light of a new day spreads. I want to see the mist slowly rise and swirl on the river's surface. Maybe I will be able to hear and see, again, the things of seasons past. I'm afraid that I will find that even the early morning mist has left that special place."
An excerpt from the book "Game Warden's Lament" by Michael Hart.