A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower. You didn’t have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else’s on earth. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way. Look at little children in kindergarten. They’re all different without trying to be. As long as they’re unselfconsciously being themselves, they can’t help but shine. It’s only later, when children are taught to compete, to strive to be better than others, that their natural light becomes distorted.
—Marianne Williamson (b.1952) American Activist, Author, Lecturer
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
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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
Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values…. God made life simple. It is man who complicates it.
—Charles Lindbergh (1902–74) American Aviator, Inventor, Conservationist
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
In the broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
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
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
You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.
—William Watson Purkey (b.1929) American Educationalist
Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven’s dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Earth laughs in flowers.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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
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
There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
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 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
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
Now there is one outstanding important fact regarding spaceship earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.
—Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher
The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
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
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
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
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
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
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