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
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
The change of mind I am talking about involves not just a change of knowledge, but also a change of attitude toward our essential ignorance, a change in our bearing in the face of mystery. The principle of ecology, if we will take it to heart, should keep us aware that our lives depend on other lives and upon processes and energies in an interlocking system that, though we can destroy it, we can neither fully understand nor fully control. And our great dangerousness is that, locked in our selfish and myopic economies, we have been willing to change or destroy far beyond our power to understand.
—Wendell Berry (b.1934) American Poet, Novelist, Environmentalist
I believe the earth on which we stand is but the vestibule to glorious mansions, to which a moving crowd is forever pressing.
—Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) Scottish Playwright, Poet
I have no patience for those who say that poverty is a blessing. Poverty is the greatest curse on earth.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, 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
I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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
The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.
—Wendell Berry (b.1934) American Poet, Novelist, Environmentalist
The waters deluge man with rain, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations; the air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walks with flowers, and his table with plenty; returns, with interest, every good committed to her care; and though she produces the poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly teased more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet even to the last she continues her kind indulgence, and, when life is over, she piously covers his remains in her bosom.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American Educationist
The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth.
—Norman Cousins (1912–1990) American Political Journalist
Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure. As stars high above earth, you are above everything distressing. But you must awaken to it. Wake up!
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher, Theologian
I thought how utterly we have forsaken the Earth, in the sense of excluding it from our thoughts. There are but few who consider its physical hugeness, its rough enormity. It is still a disparate monstrosity, full of solitudes, barrens, wilds. It still dwarfs, terrifies, crushes. The rivers still roar, the mountains still crash, the winds still shatter. Man is an affair of cities. His gardens, orchards and fields are mere scrapings. Somehow, however, he has managed to shut out the face of the giant from his windows. But the giant is there, nevertheless.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
Where is the dust that has not been alive?—The spade and the plough disturb our ancestors.—From human mold we reap our daily bread.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English 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
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader, Teacher, Author, Peace Activist
Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
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
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
Earth laughs in flowers.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Every Victim requires a Persecutor. But the Persecutor isn’t always necessarily a person. The Persecutor could also be a condition or a circumstance. A persecuting condition might be a disease or a heart attack, or an injury. A persecuting circumstance could be a natural disaster, like a hurricane or an earthquake or a house burning down.
—David Emerald
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
The yoga we practice is not for ourselves alone, but for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal Ananda, but the bringing down of the divine Ananda—Christ’s kingdom of heaven, our Satyayuga—upon the earth.
—Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian Mystic, Philosopher, Poet