EarthFoot's Favorite Quotations

The Bible, Job 12:7-10
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will teach you: or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind
sent by Cheryl K. Mast in Michigan, USA

K'ung, "The Lun Yu" (Confucius) (551-479 BC)
To learn and and then put it in practice -- isn't that a delight? To have friends come from afar -- isn't that a joy?
sent by Shannon Clery in Oregon, USA

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, committed for our safety to its security and peace, preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.
Found at the Critical Decision Web Site

Richard Nelson (? still creating):
It is the ancient wisdom of birds that battles are best fought with song.
Sent by Cindy Mead in Michigan, USA

Mark Twain (1835-1910):
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
Sent by Sue Remaley somewhere in Cyberspace

Martin Luther King (1929-1968):
Our age is one of guided missiles and unguided men.
Sent by Warren & Marita Jowett in Staveley, New Zealand

Thomas Berry (1914- ):
The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightening and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees, -- all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.
Sent by Sue Parrish in Cave Junction, Oregon, USA

Traditional Chinese Proverb
Pearls lie not on the seashore. If thou desirest one thou must dive for it.
Found at the Happy Otter Web Site

unknown author
In the beauty of nature lies the spirit of hope.
Sent by Lara Bubeck from Waterbury, CT, USA

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978):
As we begin to comprehend that the earth itself is a kind of manned spaceship hurtling through the infinity of space - it will seem increasingly absurd that we have not better organized the life of the human family.
Found at the Nature Quotes Web site

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881-1955):
Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity we shall harness the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world man will have discovered fire.
Found at the Happy Otter Web Site

Plato (±427-±347 BC):
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Sent by George Meijer in Denmark

Charles Darwin (1809-1882):
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Found at www.freespeech.org

Thomas Berry (1914 -  ):
We will go into the future as a single sacred community, or we will all perish in the desert.
Sent by Marguerite Hampton in California, USA

John Muir (1838-1914):
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything
else in the universe.
Sent by Lynn J. Fancher in Illionois, USA

Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Found at the Critical Decision Web Site

George Herbert Read (1893-1968)
Only a people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with machines.
Sent by Al Lubkowski in British Columbia, Canada

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.
Found at the RCM Travelsite

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit - not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviæ from their graves ... You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into.
Found at the Nature Quotes Web site

Charles de Lint (1951-    )
"... he had understood, better than anyone ... the beauty that grew out of the simple knowledge that everything, no matter how small or large it might be, was a perfect
example of what it was."
Sent by Michael Suttkus in Florida, USA

Henry Miller (1891-1980)
What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?
Found at the Nature Quotes Web site

Aldo Leopold  (1887-1948)
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.  When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
Found at the Eco Orca Raft Trips Web Site

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893-1986):
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Found at the Happy Otter Web Site

Juvenal (1st 2nd century AD)
Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.
Found at Charles Daney's Quotation Collection Web Site

William Blake (1757-1827):

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

sent by Whit Dieterich somehwere in Cyberspace

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use
Found at the Critical Decision Web Site

Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998):
Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
sent by Pieter du Plessis in Yellowwood Park, South Africa

T.S Eliot (1888-1965):

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

sent by Hannah Swithinbank in the United Kingdom

Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Found at Charles Daney's Quotation Collection Web Site

Marcus Aurelius (121-80 BC):
That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.
Found at the Nature Quotes Web site

John Muir (1838-1914):
I only went out for a walk and  finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really  going in.
Found at the Alaska Pathways Web Site

St. Augustine (354-430):

The world is a book,
And those who do not travel,
Read only a page.

sent by Melanie Falconer-Brown in Kalbarri, Western Australia

John Burroughs (1837-1921):
Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.
sent by an anonymous soul somewhere on the Internet

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
Found at the Nature Writings Web Site

From the Christian Bible
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?
found at the Critical Decision Web Site

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855)
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds along rocks
Found at the Critical Decision Web Site