What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground. That’s why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow’s fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
The earth, that is nature’s mother, is her tomb.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God’s. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our business. When I think, “You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself,” I am in your business. When I’m worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God’s business. If I am mentally in your business or in God’s business, the effect is separation.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit – this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The world is in balance <…>. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.
—Bill Cosby (b.1937) American Actor, Comedian, Activist, Producer, Author
Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
In practice, a global approach is needed when dealing with the problems of the spaceship earth which affect all of mankind. But local solutions, inevitably conditioned by local interests, are required for the problems peculiar to each human settlement.
—Rene Dubos (1901–82) French-American Microbiologist, Environmentalist, Author
Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
The relationship between our civilization and the earth has been radically transformed.
—Al Gore (b.1948) American Politician, Environmentalist
The earth was made so various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change, and pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
—W. W. Ziege
Earth laughs in flowers.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The earth is what we all have in common.
—Wendell Berry (b.1934) American Poet, Novelist, Environmentalist
Your life is not just about you. It’s also about contributing to others. It’s about living true to your mission and reason for being here on this earth at this time. It’s about adding your piece of the puzzle to the world. Most people are so stuck in their egos that everything revolves around me, me, and more me. But if you want to be rich in the truest sense of the word, it can’t only be about you. It has to include adding value to other people’s lives.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
You are good when you strive to give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, ‘Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.’ For to the fruit giving is a need as receiving is a need to the root.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Man makes a great fuss about this planet which is only a ballbearing in the hub of the universe.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.
—Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) American Writer, Critic, Naturalist
You weren’t an accident. You weren’t mass produced. You aren’t an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman.
—Max Lucado (b.1955) American Christian Author, Minister
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
When your heart becomes the grave of your secrets, that desire of yours will be gained more quickly. The prophet said that anyone who keeps secret his inmost thought will soon attain the object of his desire. When seeds are buried in the earth, their inward secrets become the flourishing garden.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–73) Persian Muslim Mystic
Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
Under the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature. This, of course, is a benefit which is temporary and mediate, not ultimate, like its service to the soul. Yet although low, it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend. The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on it’s vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to it’s security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
Through all these new, imaginative, and creative approaches to the problem of sharing our earth with other creatures there runs a constant theme, the awareness that we are dealing with life with living populations and all their pressures and counter pressures, their surges and recessions. Only by taking account of such life forces and by cautiously seeking to guide them into channels favorable to ourselves can we hope to achieve a reasonable accommodation between the insect hordes and ourselves.
The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man’s club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.
The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modem and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.
—Rachel Carson (1907–64) American Naturalist, Science Writer