Quotes

“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, 'The Land Ethic'

“Grief is praise. It is the way the heart acknowledges the beauty of what we have lost.”

— Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow* (2015)

“In the sanctuary of silence / beauty comes to life. / Freedom is the blossom. / Love is the perfume, / compassion its graceful way of walking.”

— Vimala Thakar, Poetry

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, 'Go to the Limits of Your Longing' (1903)

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”

— Rachel Carson, 'The Sense of Wonder' (1965)

“Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight.”

— Mary Oliver, "Mindful" (2004)

“Every symptom in our culture can be traced back to our inability to grieve well.”

— Francis Weller, In the Absence of the Sacred* (2020)

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”

— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949) — from an unused 1947 draft foreword

“The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity…” – Joanna Macy Source: Greening of the Self (2013)”

— Joanna Macy, Greening of the Self (2013)

“Grief is not a feeling but a skill - the skill that allows us to love fully in the face of loss.”

— Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow* (2015)

“The more we open our hearts to the pain of the world, the more we are able to act effectively.” – Joanna Macy Source: The Work That Reconnects, 1998”

— Joanna Macy

“Grief is praise. It is the way the heart acknowledges the beauty of what we have lost.”

— Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow* (2015)

“Deep ecology does not separate humans - or anything else - from the natural environment. It does see the world not as a collection of isolated objects but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected …”

— Fritjof Capra, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (with Pier Luigi Luisi, 2014)

“Ecosophy begins with experiencing ourselves as part of nature, not separate from it.”

— Alan Drengson, The Trumpeter journal

“Inner peace and outer peace are inseparable.”

— Sulak Sivaraksa, 'Seeds of Peace'

“Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.”

— Mohandas Gandhi, Harijan* (1940)

“The idea that humans are separate from nature is the illness of civilization.”

— Ailton Krenak, Ideas to Postpone the End of the World* (2020)

“We are the Earth become conscious of itself.”

— Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth* (1988)

“As soon as there is awareness of wholeness, every moment becomes sacred, every movement is sacred.”

— Vimala Thakar, Totality in Essence* (1986)

“Buddhism without social action is not complete Buddhism.”

— Sulak Sivaraksa, International Network of Engaged Buddhists

“Deep ecology is not just a pragmatic, short-term social movement. It attempts to question and present alternatives to conventional ways of thinking in the modern West.”

— Bill Devall, "The Deep Ecology Movement", Natural Resources Journal (1980)

“Deep ecology is not just an intellectual movement, it’s a way of being in the world.”

— Alan Drengson, 'The Deep Ecology Movement'

“The creative resistance is to maintain alive the vision that we have other possibilities of living.”

— Ailton Krenak, Ideas to Postpone the End of the World* (2020)

“Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha - the Force which is born of Truth and Love or nonviolence.”

— Mohandas Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa* (1928)

“The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears.”

— James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979)

“We must find and develop therapies which heal our relations with the widest community, that of all living beings.”

— Arne Naess, Arne Naess

“the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works, and how people think”

— Gregory Bateson, Gregory Bateson

“Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.”

— Robinson Jeffers, "Shine, Perishing Republic" (1925)

“I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential.” – Vandana Shiva”

— Vandana Shiva, Vandana Shiva

“Life did not take over the globe by combat but by networking.” — Lynn Margulis Microcosmos (1986)”

— Lynn Margulis, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution (1986)

“Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical process of nature.”

— Fritjof Capra, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (with Pier Luigi Luisi, 2014)

“Autopoiesis is the mechanism that makes living systems autonomous.”

— Francisco Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition* (1980)

“Contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?”

— Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk* (2019)

“Every species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.”

— E.O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life* (1992)

“Information is a difference that makes a difference.”

— Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind* (1972)

“The Council of All Beings allows us to step aside from our human identity and speak on behalf of the other species and ecosystems with whom we share this Earth.”

— Pat Fleming, Thinking Like a Mountain* (1988)

“Ahimsa is the means; Truth is the end. Means to be means must always be within our reach, and so ahimsa is our supreme duty.”

— Mohandas Gandhi, Young India* (1931)

“As soon as there is awareness of wholeness, every moment becomes sacred, every movement is sacred.”

— Vimala Thakar, Totality in Essence* (1986)

“Buddhism without social action is not complete Buddhism.”

— Sulak Sivaraksa, International Network of Engaged Buddhists

“By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us.”

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu* (1927)

“God and Nature are one and the same.”

— Baruch Spinoza, Ethics* (1677)

“Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.”

— E.O. Wilson, Biophilia* (1984)

“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, 'The Land Ethic'

“Grief is praise. It is the way the heart acknowledges the beauty of what we have lost.”

— Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow* (2015)

“I live my life in widening circles / that reach out across the world.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, 'Widening Circles' (1899)

“In the sanctuary of silence / beauty comes to life. / Freedom is the blossom. / Love is the perfume, / compassion its graceful way of walking.”

— Vimala Thakar, Poetry

“Stay together / learn the flowers / go light.”

— Gary Snyder, 'For the Children' (1974)

“The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”

— Thomas Berry, The Universe Story* (1992)