The natural environment is the great outpatient department where we can go for healing - William Bird, GP, Berkshire West Primary Care Trust (quoted in Sustainable Development Commission 'Healthy Futures' publication, March 2007)

A lot of work and money has been spent on astronomy and yet we have not found life. So we are rare, and rare things tend to be fragile and you have to be careful about them - Rt Hon John Gummer MP (writing in Water, Energy & Environment magazine, June 2007)

We all tend to feel better in the natural environment - so why are we working so hard to destroy it? - Dr Michael Dixon, Chairman, NHS Alliance (quoted in Sustainable Development Commission 'Healthy Futures' publication, March 2007)

By starting from the ground and tapping into the absolute, uncheatable truth of nature we can make ourselves better - Monty Don, TV gardener (profiled in The Sunday Times, 29.10.2006)

From a distance the world looks blue and green,
and the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream,
and the eagle takes to flight.
From a distance, there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace,
it's the voice of every man
- from the lyrics for 'From A Distance' (Bette Midler)

At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity - Chico Mendes, Rubber tappers' leader

The best friend of earth and of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the earth - Frank Lloyd Wright

The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the Earth - Dan Nepstadt, Ecologist (October 2005)

...our culture's frenzied and mindless assault on the last shreds of nature may not be the wisest course... We're melting the ice caps, ripping up the rain forest, and vacuuming the oceans of everything that wriggles - George Meyer, writer for The Simpsons (BBC Green Room, 3 August 2006)

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal - Edward Wilson

Forests precede civilizations, deserts follow - unattributable

We define our landscapes as much as they define us - unattributable

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen - Henry David Thoreau, American writer (1817-1862)

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 - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Man is a complex being; he makes the deserts bloom and lakes die - Gil Stern

Activities that destroy ecosystems always destroy jobs - anonymous

The wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask - Nancy Newhall

The first law of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts - Aldo Leopold

The preservation of biodiversity is not just a job for governments. International and non-governmental organisations, the private sector and each and every individual have a role to play in changing entrenched outlooks and ending destructive patterns of behaviour - Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General on the 2003 International Day of Biological Diversity

Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion - Lorraine Anderson

Nature is just enough; but men and women must comprehend and accept her suggestions - Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825 - 1921)

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral - John Burroughs

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd - Baruch Spinoza

Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it - Curtius-Rufus (100 AD)

Nature does not compromise; a pelican is not a compromise between a crow and otter, it is just a pelican. Nature makes no compromises; any inefficient products are recalled to the manufacturer! - Amory Lovins

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better - Albert Einstein

If you live according to nature, you never will be poor; if according to the world's caprice, you will never be rich - Publilius Syrus (42 BC)

Nature uses as little as possible of anything - Johannes Kepler

Nature does nothing uselessly - Aristotle

Men argue; nature acts - Voltaire

We celebrate the cherry tree not for its efficiency but for its effectiveness - and for its beauty. Its materials are in constant flow, and all those thousands of useless cherry blossoms look gorgeous. Then they fall to the ground and become soil again, so there's no problem - William McDonough, architect

The law of nature is the strictest expression of necessity - Molescholte

Being inexhaustible, life and nature are a constant stimulus for a creative mind - Hans Hofmann

Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is million fathoms deep - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Nature is the most thrifty thing in the world; she never wastes anything, she undergoes change, but there's no annihilation, the essence remains - matter is eternal - Horace Binney

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed - Francis Bacon (16th Century philospher)

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own - Charles Dickens

A thing of beauty is a joy forever - John Keats

For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm - Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980)

On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it - Jules Renard

After a visit to the beach, it's hard to believe that we live in a material world - Pam Shaw

One can never study nature too much and too hard - Vincent van Gogh

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures - Vincent van Gogh

Land really is the best art - Andy Warhol

Things perfected by nature are better than those finished by art - Cicero

For art may err, but nature cannot miss - John Dryden

Art is a harmony parallel with nature - Paul Cézanne

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty, if only we have the eyes to see them - John Ruskin (1819-1900)

No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does - George Bernard Shaw

I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree - (Alfred) Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it - Confucius

There is however, a true music of nature; the song of the birds, the whisper of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or sea - Lubbock

In every walk with nature, you receive far more than you seek - unattributable

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast - Paul Scott Mowrer

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

Spring is nature's way of saying "Let's party!" - Robin Williams (American actor and comedian)

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day - W Earl Hall

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment - O’Keefe

Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul - Prophet Muhammad

Take the time to smell a rose - unattributable

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift - Albert Einstein

Our environment is like a patchwork quilt. Each "patch" is dependent on those around it. If one part unravels, it affects the rest - Hemeon

This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient, more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used - Henry David Thoreau, American writer (1817-1862)

If we once, and for so long, lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again - John Zerzan

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

If you are missing out on the natural joy and wisdom of life, it is because you have been taught to ignore it....Reconnecting with nature consists of bringing into your consciousness a sensory way of thinking and relating with which you are born - Michael J. Cohen

Nature never says one thing and wisdom another - Decimus Junius Juvenalis

In the United Kingdom no one lives more than 75 miles from the sea. For us, as an island nation, the sea has an all-embracing presence. Spiritually and physically we are intimately connected with our shoes. The sea has immense power, which we ignore at our peril - National Trust 'Shifting Shores - Living with a changing coastline' (2005)

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in 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 Byron, 1788-1824

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug - Helen Keller

I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world - What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong (1901-1970)

I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er vales and hills. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodil; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze - William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything - William Shakespeare

Come forth into the light of things. Let nature be your teacher - William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order - John Burroughs

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 away from you like the leaves of autumn - John Muir

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world - John Muir

The beauty of mother nature is her ability to make complex things appear simple - Loius E Samuels, M.D.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts - Rachel Carson

Nature always tends to act in the simplest way - Bernoulli

The value of nature: On many levels, physical, mental and spiritual, our life is dependent on the natural environment. That is to say, our existence and well-being require the maintenance of that which has its being irrespective of ourselves and our efforts - Keith Innes

In nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences - R Ingersoll

If we care about the countyside we must eat the view. Most wonderful landscapes are the product of many years of farming. By buying the products of that farming we can all do our part to sustain our beautiful scenery - Richard Wakeford, Chief Executive, Countryside Agency (2002)

People everywhere depend upon biodiversity for their livelihoods, their quality of life, and to provide basic ecological services on which all life depends - The Business and Biodiversity Resource Centre (www.businessandbiodiversity.org)

The spirit of a country, if it is to be true to itself, needs continually to draw great breaths of inspiration from the simple realities of the country; from the smell of its soil, the pattern of its fields, the beauty of its scenery and from the men and women who dwell and toil in the rural areas - Sir George Stapledon in ‘Make Fruitful the Land’

Man's heart away from nature becomes hard - Standing Bear

Till now man has been up against nature, from now on he will be up against his own nature - Dennis Gabor

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled - Richard Feynman

If you are thinking one year ahead, sow seed. If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people - Chinese proverb

The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives - Indian proverb

We all live downstream - David Suzuki

Modern technology
Owes ecology
an apology
- Alan M. Eddison

The environment is not as 'cheap as chips', it's priceless and we all have a part to play in protecting it - David Dickinson (TV celebrity)

Trees are your best antiques - Alexander Smith

Only when the last tree is cut, only when the last river is polluted, only when the last fish is caught, will they realise that you can't eat money - Native American proverb

Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we - Michel de Montaigne

But while nature has considerable resilience, there is a limit to how far that resilience can be stretched. No one knows how close to the limit we are getting. The darker it gets, the faster we're driving - Douglas Adams (author)

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value - Theodore Roosevelt (US President 1901-1909)

Organic agriculture is more about fairness and respect than it is about parts-per-billion of pesticide residues - Jim Hightower, organic campaigner (USA)

If we do not permit the Earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food either - Joseph Woodkrutch

In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught - Baba Dioum

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair - Kahlil Gibran

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather - John Ruskin

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase it's usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very properity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed - Theodore Roosevelt

If you mess with something long enough, it will break - Schmidt's Law

Every child is born a naturalist. His eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life - R Search

Beauty dies where litter lies - unattributable

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, reformer and teacher (1483 - 1546)

Do not cut down the tree that gives you shade - Arabian proverb

Don't blow it - good planets are hard to find - Quoted in Time magazine

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished - Lao Tzu

Other quotes:-

Sustainable development, climate change & sustainability in general

Sustainable business, management & economics

People matter too

Miscellaneous wisdom & wit