50 Best Inspirational Quotes

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Grim Cris

1. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” – Albert Einstein

2. “Act now. There is never any time but now, and there never will be any time but now.” – Wallace Wattles

3. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

4. “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering the attitudes of his mind.” – William James

5. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

6. “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela

7. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” – Robert Frost

8. “You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.” – John Addison

9. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin

10. “An ounce of doing things is worth a pound of theorizing.” – Wallace Wattles

11. “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

12. “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.” – Stephen Covey

13. “The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.” – Joseph Joubert

14. ”Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – Winston Churchill

15. “Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel Stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself.” – Dara Henderson

16. “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” – Jim Rohn

17. “Vision without action is just a dream, action without vision just passes the time, vision with action can change the world” – Nelson Mandela

18. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot

19. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

20. “Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose yours.” – Paulo Coelho

21. “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – John F. Kennedy

22. “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.” – James Joyce

23. “I have learned that it’s not WHAT I have in my life but WHO I have in my life that counts.” – Unknown

24. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau

25. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” – Jim Rohn

26. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

27. “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” – Goethe

28. “It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined” – Henry James

29. “And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

30. “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” – Will Rogers

31. “Try not. Do or do not. There is no Try.” – Yoda (Star Wars!)

32. “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.” – William Wallace

33. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

34. “There are no limits on what you can achieve with your life, except the limits you accept in your mind” – Brian Tracy

35.“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

36. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

37. “When I thought I couldn’t go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck.” – Estee Lauder

38. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

39. “The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” – Tom Bodett

40. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso

41. “The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” – Mark Twain

42. “There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley

43. “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard

44. “Nothing important was ever achieved without someone taking a chance.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

45. “I will go anywhere as long as it is forward.” – David Livingston

46. “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

47. “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” – Michelangelo

48. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison

49. “Strive for progress, not perfection.” – Unknown

50. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Philosophical Quotes

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Grim Cris

We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation. ~Francois De La Rochefoucauld

A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure. ~Lee Segall

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop. ~Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. ~Andre Gide

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. ~Aesop

Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying. ~Baba Ram Dass

I am a part of all that I have met. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

There’s more to the truth than just the facts. ~Author Unknown

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. ~Edward R. Murrow

Even a clock that does not work is right twice a day. ~Polish Proverb

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. ~Ludwig Börne

If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky? ~Stanislaw J. Lec

We are all but recent leaves on the same old tree of life and if this life has adapted itself to new functions and conditions, it uses the same old basic principles over and over again. There is no real difference between the grass and the man who mows it. ~Albert Szent-Györgyi

Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly. ~Edward Albee

When the student is ready, the master appears. ~Buddhist Proverb

A gun gives you the body, not the bird. ~Henry David Thoreau

Before enlightenment – chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment – chop wood, carry water. ~Zen Buddhist Proverb

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~Henry David Thoreau

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work – that goes on, it adds up. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying. ~Charles C. Finn

Oh, Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry a future Ghost within us; but are, in very deed, Ghosts! ~Thomas Carlyle

Knock on the sky and listen to the sound. ~Zen Saying

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him? ~Chuang Tzu

Vagabonding and Travel Quotes

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Grim Cris

Dont take life too seriously…no one comes out alive – Elbert Hubbard

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving – Lao Tzu

He who knows that he has enough, will always have enough – Lao Tzu

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth. – Buddha

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. – Lao Tzu

We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope – Edward Abbey

My greatest skill has been to want little – Henry David Thoreau

Always do what you are afraid to do – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
The fearful are caught as often as the bold. – Helen Keller

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. – Helen Keller

We will not cease from our exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. – T.S. Elliot

Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits. – Pico Iyer

Not all those who wander are lost – JRR Tolkien

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will lead you there – Unknown

A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles. – Tim Cahill

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty & well preserved body; but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a ride!’ – Hunter S. Thompson

Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. – Miriam Beard

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste it, to experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. – Eleanor Roosevelt

All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world: those that stay at home and those that do not. – Rudyard Kipling

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. – Confucius

Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going. – Paul Theroux

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. – Aldous Huxley

The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it. – Rudyard Kipling

And forget not that the Earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. – Kahlil Gibran

25 Kickass Inspirational Quotes about Life

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Grim Cris

1. Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself – George Bernard Shaw

2. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover – Mark Twain

3. Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant – Robert Louis Stevenson

4. We don’t see things the way they are. We see them the way WE are – Talmud

5. I have found that if you love life, life will love you back – Arthur Rubinstein

6. The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be – Marcel Pagnol

7. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – Lao Tzu

8. Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive – Howard Thurman

9. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better – Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like – Will Rogers

11. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been – Wayne Gretzky

12. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional – Anony-mouse

13. Every man dies. Not every man really lives – William Ross Wallace

14. Life isn’t a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, latte in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ‘Woohoo WHAT A RIDE’! – Unknown

15. There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle – Albert Einstein

16. Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security – John Allen Paulos

17. You are not in this world to live up to other people’s expectations, nor should you feel the world must live up to yours – F Perl

18. How you do one thing, is how you do everything. Be aware. – Unknown

19. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing – Helen Keller

20. Life is not about kissing ass, it’s about kicking ass! – Unknown

21. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it – Henry David Thoreau

22. Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself – Harvey Fierstein

23. Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are – John Wooden

24. In the end, it’s not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away – Shing Xiong

25. Breathe. It’s just a bad day. Not a bad life – Unknown

Inspiring Adventure and Life Quotes

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Grim Cris

1. “Before you try and change the world, let the world change you.” -Semester at Sea Saying

2. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” -Helen Keller

3. “The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word – extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me… and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different… and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it…” -Bear Grylls

4. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”-Dr. Seuss

5. “Everything I’m not make me everything I am.” -Kanye West

6. “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”-James Dean

7. “In life, anything worth taking seriously is worth poking fun at.” -Author Unknown

8. “A man’s actions are a direct testament of his thoughts (live adventurously).”-Author Unknown

9. “However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.”-Henry David Thoreau

10. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”-Barack Obama

11. “Put a ding in the universe.” -Steve Jobs

12. “Yeah, I’m a thrill seeker, but crikey, education’s the most important thing.” -Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter

13. “I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.”-Oprah

14. “I just love that spirit that makes people do things that they probably shouldn’t.” -Johnny Knoxville

15. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” -Dr. Seuss

16. “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.” -Dr. Seuss

17. “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” -G.K Chesterton

18. “All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.”-Sally Ride

19. “We love because it’s the only true adventure.” -Nikki Giovanni

20. “I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”-Vincent Van Gogh

21. ”You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way.” -Lady Gaga

22. “Nothing is really ‘safe’.” -Bam Margera

23. “One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.” – William Feather

24. “Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.”-Alan Sachs

25. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain

Inspirational Quotes

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Grim Cris

The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. — George Kostanza

Almost all the other fellows do not look from the facts to the theory but from the theory to the facts; they cannot get out of the network of already accepted concepts; instead, comically, they only wriggle about inside. — Albert Einstein (in a letter to Erwin Schrödinger, August 8, 1935)

Voting in a democracy makes you feel powerful, much as playing the lottery makes you feel rich. — Mencius Moldbug

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. — Philip K. Dick

If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm. — Vince Lombardi (US football coach, 1913-1970)

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? — John Wooden

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spent the first four sharpening the axe. — Abraham Lincoln

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily. — Zig Ziglar

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Geniuses remove it. — Alan Perlis

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. — Mark Twain

I’ll go anywhere as long as it’s forward. — David Livingstone

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. — Albert Camus

I don’t like work–no man does–but I like what is in the work,–the chance to find yourself. Your own reality–for yourself, not for others–what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means. — Joseph Conrad

The language of friendship is not words, but meanings. — Henry David Thoreau

Man is surely mad. He cannot make a worm; yet he makes Gods by the dozen. — Michel de Montaigne

Life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. — John Maxwell

You wouldn’t worry so much about what other people think if you knew how seldom they do. — Minutes from the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, 1961

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. — John Steinbeck

Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one. — Geffray Mynshul (Essays and Characters of a Prison, 1612)

Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise. — Thomas Gray (Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 1742)

There’s an old saying about those who forget history. I don’t remember it, but it’s good. — Stephen Colbert

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. — George Bernard Shaw

It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. — Victor Frankl

The wisest men follow their own direction. — Euripides

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. — The Buddha

If you speak the truth, have a foot in the stirrup. — Turkish Proverb

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. — Galileo Galilei

Society and Class Quotes

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Grim Cris

That which has been is what will be; that which is done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. – Ecclesiastes 1:9 – 11 1

Twee boeren eisten dezelfde koe op. Terwijl de ene boer aan de horens trok en de andere aan de staart werd de koe gemolken door een advocaat. – Hebreeuws Gezegde

When you philosophically oppose an entire power elite, you cannot help but sound like a conspiracy theorist. Social power is by nature a conspiracy. – Tom N.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. - Henry David Thoreau

We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. – Dilbert

Video games don’t affect kids. If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music. – Nintendo CEO

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.2 - The Palatine of Posen, father of the King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine

We should try to create the society we would want if we didn’t know in advance who we’d be. – Paul Krugman, inspired by John Rawls

Half of writing history is hiding the truth. – Serenity

Deep Quotes

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Grim Cris

Because there is something helpless and weak and innocent – something like an infant – deep inside us all that really suffers in ways we would never permit an insect to suffer. – Jack Henry Abbott

I’m an ocean, because I’m really deep. If you search deep enough you can find rare exotic treasures. – Christina Aguilera

I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it. – Tori Amos

And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. – Abraham Lincoln

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live. – Greg Anderson

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. – Saul Bellow

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light. – Theodore Roethke

They say the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they’re seldom spent in vain. – William Shakespeare

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. – William S. Burroughs

25 of the Most Inspirational Quotes

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Grim Cris

. What you do today can improve all your tomorrows. ~Ralph Marston

2. Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. ~John F. Kennedy

3. What you get by achieving your goals is to as important as what you become by achieving your goals. ~Henry David Thoreau

4. To be a good loser is to learn how to win. ~Carl Sandburg

5. To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

6. When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. ~Thomas Jefferson

7. Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. ~Henry Ford

8. Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. ~Albert Einstein

9. For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her. ~Charles De Gaulle

10. True happiness involves the full use of one’s power and talents. ~John W. Gardner

11. We make the world we live in and shape our own environment. ~Orison Swett Marden

12. What is called genius is the abundance of life and health. ~Henry David Thoreau

13. Wherever you are – be all there. ~Jim Elliot

14. Who seeks shall find. ~Sophocles

15. Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds. ~Gordon B. Hinckley

16. You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. ~C. S. Lewis

17. You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. ~Ted Turner

18. You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. ~Henry Ford

19. You can’t expect to hit the jackpot if you don’t put a few nickels in the machine. ~Flip Wilson

20. You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ~Jack London

21. You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals. ~George S. Patton

22. Destiny is not a matter of chance; it’s a matter of choice. ~Anonymous

23. Excellence is to do a common thing, in an uncommon way. ~Booker T. Washington

24. Do not let what you can not do, interfere with what you can do. ~John Wooden

25. One man with courage makes a majority. ~Andrew Jackson

Earth Day Quotes

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Grim Cris

Today we celebrate Earth Day. Let’s do it in our own way, sharing Earth Day Quotes.

Every day is Earth Day. ~Author Unknown

I conceive that the land belongs to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless numbers are still unborn. ~A Chieftan from Nigeria

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew. ~Marshall McLuhan, 1964

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau

There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all. ~Robert Orben

I’m not an environmentalist. I’m an Earth warrior. ~Darryl Cherney, quoted in Smithsonian, April 1990

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. ~Bill Vaughn, quoted in Jon Winokur, The Portable Curmudgeon, 1987

For 200 years we’ve been conquering Nature. Now we’re beating it to death. ~Tom McMillan, quoted in Francesca Lyman, The Greenhouse Trap, 1990

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir, 1913, in L.M. Wolfe, ed., John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977

A living planet is a much more complex metaphor for deity than just a bigger father with a bigger fist. If an omniscient, all-powerful Dad ignores your prayers, it’s taken personally. Hear only silence long enough, and you start wondering about his power. His fairness. His very existence. But if a world mother doesn’t reply, Her excuse is simple. She never claimed conceited omnipotence. She has countless others clinging to her apron strings, including myriad species unable to speak for themselves. To Her elder offspring She says – go raid the fridge. Go play outside. Go get a job. Or, better yet, lend me a hand. I have no time for idle whining. ~David Brin

Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature. ~Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future, 1963

Take nothing but pictures.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time. ~Motto of the Baltimore Grotto, a caving society

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle, 1855

Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values…. God made life simple. It is man who complicates it. ~Charles A. Lindbergh, Reader’s Digest, July 1972

After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world. ~Pam Shaw

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~John Muir

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

Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away. ~Stephanie Mills, ed., In Praise of Nature, 1990

Humanity is on the march, earth itself is left behind. ~David Ehrenfeld, The Arrogance of Humanism, 1978

It is the safest of times, it is the riskiest of times…. What the Dickens is going on here? ~Denton Morrison, on chemicals, technology, and risk, quoted in National Academy of Sciences, Improving Risk Communication, 1989

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. ~Juvenal, Satires

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet. ~Brooke Medicine Eagle

You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. ~Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ~William Shakespeare

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb