Wild Expressions

Here are some of our favorite quotes about wildlife, conservation, wilderness and nature.

Activism and Environmental Stewardship

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them." - Mark Twain

“Today's problems cannot be solved if we still think the way we thought when we created them.” - Albert Einstein

"The time is always ripe to do right." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” - Bruce Lee

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise." – Aldo Leopold

“If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come from the grass roots up, not from the top down.” - Paul Hawken

“We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.” – U.S. President John F. Kennedy

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.” - Lena Horne

“As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love and compassion.” - Richard Gere

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” - Mother Teresa

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” - Winston Churchill

“Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.” - Frances Moore Lappe

“I believe in the divine right of all species to survive on this planet. So I decided I want to be active.”  - Leonardo DiCaprio

"Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet." - Roger Miller

Biodiversity

"For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal." – U.S. President Thomas Jefferson

"All things are connected." - Chief Seattle

“Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.” - Blaise Pascal

“Every time we lose a species we break a life chain which has evolved over 3.5 billion years.” - Jeffrey McNeely

“Uniformity is not nature's way; diversity is nature's way.” - Vandana Shiva

“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.” - E. O. Wilson

“It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for -- the whole thing -- rather than just one or two stars.” - David Attenborough

"Our health relies entirely on the vitality of our fellow species on Earth."  - Harrison Ford

Conservation

“The movement for the conservation of wildlife [is] essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.” – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

"What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself." - Mollie Beattie, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1993-1996

"We are the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy." - Wallace Stegner

"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment." - Ansel Adams

"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

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction." - Rachel Carson

"In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." - Baba Dioum, Senegalese poet

"It is our task in our time and in our generation, to hand down undiminished to those who come after us…the natural wealth and beauty which is ours." – U.S. President John F. Kennedy

"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian

"We have not inherited the world from our forefathers -- we have borrowed it from our children." - Kashmiri proverb

"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

"The purpose of conservation: The greatest good to the greatest number of people for the longest time." - Gifford Pinchot, first Director of the U.S. Forest Service

"For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver." - Martin Luther

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

"It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it." - Edward Abbey

Nature

"Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it." – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, 1903

"We can never have enough of nature." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

"If it's unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature." - Mollie Beattie, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1993-1996

“When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” - Aldo Leopold

“We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.” - Margaret Mead

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” - William Wordsworth

“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” - Henry David Thoreau

“Our task must be to…embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” - Albert Einstein

“To the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” - William Blake

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.” - Alice Walker

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle

Wilderness and Public Lands

"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed."  - Wallace Stegner, The Wilderness Letter

"The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask." - Nancy Newhall quoted in John McPhee's, Encounters with the Archdruid, 1971

"The wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit." - Joseph Wood Krutch, Today and All Its Yesterdays, 1958

"In wildness is the preservation of the world." - Henry David Thoreau, speech at Concord Lyceum, April 23, 1851

"Democracy…must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with…animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies -- or it will dwindle and pale." - Walt Whitman

"If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go." - Terry Tempest Williams, Testimony

“Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.” - Terry Tempest Williams

"[Forests are] the 'lungs' of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people." - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech, January 29, 1935

"[Our public lands represent] in a sense, the breathing space of the nation." - U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, environmental message, February 8, 1971

“What little wilderness remains displays the patterns we must return to.” - Stephanie Mills

"When we protect the places where the processes of life can flourish, we strengthen…the essential conditions for peace and prosperity." - Harrison Ford

Wildlife Conservation and Animals

"When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished." – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

“An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.” - Martin Buber

“The Animals of the planet are in desperate peril. Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen.” - Alice Walker

“Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.” - Edward O. Wilson

“The fate of animals is…indissolubly connected with the fate of men.” - Émile Zola

“Animals are such agreeable friends -- they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.” - George Eliot

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of humanity." - George Bernard Shaw

“We should remember in our dealings with animals that they are a sacred trust to us…[They] cannot speak for themselves.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe

"This is what you should do; love the Earth and sun and the animals.” - Walt Whitman

"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man." - Charles Darwin

"If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals." - Albert Einstein

Wolves

"We humans fear the beast within the wolf because we do not understand the beast within ourselves." - Gerald Hausman

"Wolves may feature in our myths, our history and our dreams, but they have their own future, their own loves, their own dreams to fulfill." - Anthony Miles

“Wolves are not our brothers; they are not our subordinates, either. They are another nation, caught up just like us in the complex web of time and life.” - Henry Beston

"The caribou feeds the wolf, but it is the wolf who keeps the caribou strong." - Keewation (Inuit) proverb

"Only a mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf." - Aldo Leopold

"To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul - hope you like what you see." - Aldo Leopold

"Throw me to the wolves because there's order in the pack." - Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Easily”

"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack" - Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book