10 Nature Quotes

"In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busily sawing off the limb on which it is perched." -- Paul Ehrlich, 1973

"Extinction proves our arrogance, but actions prove our love." -- Scott Boven, 2002

"If indeed thy heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine." -- Thomas Kempis (c.1380-1471)

"Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech." -- Aldo Leopold (1886-1948)

"There is no philosophy with a shadow of realism about it, save a philosophy based upon Nature." -- Donal Culross Peattie (1898-1964)

"No poem, no painting, no work of man's hand or brain is as marvelous a thing as the least of the species of living beings that inhabit the Earth. Each one... is a miracle as far beyond our comprehension as the stars. We cannot make them, we cannot understand how they were made. To destroy one... to wipe out a whole species... for all eternity, is to do so colossal a thing that the mind falters at the thought. Yet we have done it again and again, thoughtlessly, needlessly, wantonly, cruelly... many of the species that we have destroyed -- or are now destroying -- were among the noblest and most beautiful." -- Herbert Ravenel Sass (1884-1958)

"Conservation is a way of living and an attitude that humanity must adopt if it wants to live decently and permanently on Earth." -- Paul Bigelow Sears

"A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated." -- Sutra-Kritanga Sutra 1:11:33

"...it has never been man's gift to make wildernesses. But he can make deserts, and has." -- Wallace Stegner

"More than half our wetlands are gone; in some states the figure is as high as 80 percent. Tallgrass prairies once covered 142 million acres in a green belt across the heart of North America. Today, as a functioning ecosystem, they are essentially extinct. And, about a tenth of our old-growth forests survive. As all of these unique habitats have dwindled, so too have the species that depend on them. I believe it's important to understand that people -- you and I -- have a direct interest in the extinction crisis. You can argue about who is responsible, but you can't ignore the effect that it will have on your lives and the lives of your children. To put it bluntly, the spiraling loss of species is an indicator that the natural world upon which we depend is in serious trouble." -- John Sawhill (1935-2000)

Used with permission from ExtinctionMemorial.org.