Quotes for Gardeners, Lovers of the Green Way,
and Friends of the Earth
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Quotations Bibliography Links Conservation Suggestions and Ideas
Solar, Wind and Hydroelectric Power Resources Simplicity Gardening Virtue Ethics
Cloud Hands Blog Process Philosophy
Quotations, Ideas,
Wisdom
Conservation, Green Living, Simplicity, Reducing
Consumption
"A true conservationist is a man who knows that the
world is not given by his fathers,
but borrowed from his children."
- John James Audubon, 1785 - 1851
"To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin
and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase it's usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very property which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1858 - 1919
"It isn't pollution that's
harming the environment.
It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
- Dan Quayle
"Over the long haul of life on this planet, it is the
ecologists, and not the
bookkeepers of business, who are the ultimate accountants."
- Stewart Udall
“To those devoid of imagination a blank place
on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”
- Aldo Leopold
“My two favourite things in life
are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting
anything. The perfect day: riding a bike to the library.”
- Peter Golkin
"We are all fools! Blinded
with greed, we rape the earth and declare ourselves its masters. We glut ourselves with the riches, cut the forests down like wheat, and jingling our dollars cannot hear the voice of intolerable unrest within us. Beware America! The earth too has a voice which someday we must answer."
- Frank Waters, The Dust Within the Rock, 1940
"We could have saved the Earth but we
were too damned cheap."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will
love only what we understand; and we will understand
only what we have been taught."
- Baba Dioum
"We learn from our gardens to deal
with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?"
- Wendell Berry
"Save the whales. Collect the whole
set."
- Author Unknown
"Until he extends the circle of his
compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace."
- Albert Schweitzer
"It is good to realize that if love
and peace can prevail on earth,
and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts,
the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever."
- Jimmy Carter
"If the earth is man's extended body,
to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic."
- Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown, 1968,
p. 111
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Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores Compiled by Mike Garofalo |
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"Man has been endowed with reason,
with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep
disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, and the climate's ruined and the land
grows poorer and uglier every day."
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
- Henry David Thoreau
“I really wonder what gives us the
right to wreck this poor planet of ours.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
"We say we love flowers, yet we pluck
them.
We say we love trees, yet we cut them down.
And people still wonder why some are afraid
when told they are loved."
"Modern society will find no solution
to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle."
- Pope John Paul II
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”
- Gary Snyder
“To be poor and be without trees, is to be the
most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be
completely rich in ways that money can never buy.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, The Faithful Gardener
"Only after the last tree has been cut
down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree Indian Prophecy
“Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided
grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.”
- George Carlin
Simplicity - Quotes for Gardeners
"We must plant the sea and herd its animals. Using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about - farming replacing hunting."
- Jacques Cousteau
"Hurt not the earth, neither the
sea, nor the trees."
- Revelation 7:3
"The frog does not drink up the pond
in which it lives."
- Chinese Proverb
“Destroying rainforest for
economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
- Edward O. Wilson
"What we are doing to the forests of
the world is but a mirror reflection
of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another."
- Chris Maser, Forest Primeval
"Upon the rivers which are tributary
to the Mississippi and also upon those which empty themselves into Lake Michigan, there are interminable forests of pine, sufficient to supply all the wants of the citizens … for all time to come."
- Ben C. Eastman, Wisconsin Congressman, 1852
"I have come to terms with the future.
From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth.
Plant trees.
Kill no living things.
Live in harmony with all creatures.
I will restore the earth where I am.
Use no more of its resources than I need.
And listen, listen to what it is telling me."
- M.J. Slim Hooey
"Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating. The food he grows will be fresher, more nutritious, less contaminated by poisons and preservatives and dyes that what he can buy in a store. He is reducing the trash problem; a garden is not a disposable container, and it will digest and reuse its own wastes. If he enjoys working in his garden, then he is less dependent on an automobile or merchant for his pleasure. He is involving himself directly in the work of feeding people.
A person who undertakes to grow a
garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit
the economy of the soil, has set his mind decisively against what is wrong with
us. He is helping himself in a way that dignifies him and that is rich in
meaning and pleasure. But he is doing something else that is more
important: he is making vital contact with the soil and the weather on which his
life depends. He will no longer look upon rain as a traffic impediment, or
upon the sun as a holiday decoration. And his sense of humanity's
dependence on the world will have grown precise enough, one would hope, to be
politically clarifying and useful."
- Wendell Berry, "The World Ending Fire", p. 55
"We who revel in nature's diversity
and feel instructed by every animal tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction."
- Stephen Jay Gould
“We rich nations, for that is what we are, have
an obligation not only to the poor nations, but to all the grandchildren of the
world, rich and poor. We have not inherited this earth from our parents to do
with it what we will. We have borrowed it from our children and we must be
careful to use it in their interests as well as our own. Anyone who fails to
recognise the basic validity of the proposition put in different ways by
increasing numbers of writers, from Malthus to The Club of Rome, is either
ignorant, a fool, or evil.”
- Moss Cass
“The Holy Land is everywhere”
- Black Elk
Bibliography,
Links, Resources
Conservation, Green Living, Simplicity, Reducing
Consumption
Ways to Reduce Energy Consumption
Ways to Conserve Natural and Mental Resources in Our Lives
Ideas from Mike Garofalo
I live in Northern California, in the North
Sacramento Valley, in Tehama County, near
Red Bluff, California.
We have a Mediterranean climate,
USA climate Zone 9.
Rain comes in the winter months, and nearly no rain from June until October.
Our winters are mild with no snow, and our summers quite hot and dry. We
live in a rural area that features groves of almonds, olives, and walnuts; and
cattle grazing. My primary interests are in the
Northwestern
United States of America, i.e., from Sacramento to San Jose and then north into
Western Canada; including British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern
California.
My observations, ideas, tips, and suggestions come from this geographical perspective, rural living, and travels in the Northwester USA area.
Winter
Seal off cracks or spaces in doors and windows.
Keep doors and windows closed.
Do you really need to heat the whole house at night in warmer climates?
An electrical blanket might be sufficient.
Wear warm clothes inside. Keep your head warm.
Spring
Plant deciduous shrubs and trees on the sunny sides of your home.
Summer
Cover all windows facing the sun with roll down
screens. Keep your house darkened in the hot summer months.
Use white window sun screens.
Insulate your attic, install attic fans, reduce loss of energy though the attic
and roof.
Set your air-conditioning thermostat to a lower temperature in the summer, e.g,
80F.
Use a evaporative cooler in locales with lower humidity.
Fall
All Year - Energy Conservation
Turn off all unneeded and unnecessary
electrical lights in your home.
Use Star-certified lower wattage lights.
Turn off all electrical appliances when you go to bed at night.
Check your electrical meter and compare with electric utility bills.
Lower your water heater temperature to 120 degrees, and/or buy more efficient
water heaters.
Don't waste any water. Fix all drips and leaks. Schedule and meter
release water.
Write to your elected officials and encourage them to adopt Green Positive
legislation.
Coordinate shopping trips to reduce mileage driven. Share rides with
friends.
Take vacations closer to your home. Travel the world using documentary and
travel films/video.
Use mass transit when possible.
Change the filters on your air-conditioning and furnace filters.
Use a programmable thermostat on your air-conditioning system.
Seek more small scale solutions to your local energy conservation needs.
All Year - Mental Conservation and Reorientation
Watch less television. Avoid negative, anti-Green, trivial and useless
radio and television programs.
Read books and articles about the Green Revolution, conservation,
environmentalism, renewable energy, simple living.
Write to your elected officials and encourage them to adopt Green Positive
legislation.
Travel the world using documentary and
travel films/video.
Seek, cultivate, and appreciate Beauty.
Avoid and discourage gun worshippers and pro gun nuts.
Learn about the energy provider options in your area.
Long Term Investments
Upgrade your appliances to more energy efficient models if possible.
Insulate your attic, install attic fans, reduce loss of energy though the attic
and roof.
Paint your roof white.
Use solar energy systems in your home.
Ride a bicycle or moped.
Drive a smaller car that gets more miles per gallon.
The Spirit of Gardening
Website
Over 3,800 Quotations, Poems, Sayings, Quips, One-Liners, Clichés, Quotes, and
Insights
Arranged by Over 250 Topics
Over 15 Megabytes of Text
Over 26 Million Webpages (excluding graphics) Served to Readers Around the World
From January 1, 1999 through December 31,
2015 from the Spirit of Gardening Website.
Compiled by Mike Garofalo
E-Mail
Last modified or updated on August 29, 2016.
This webpage was first posted on the Internet on March 10, 2001
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