Inspirational Quotes for Earth Day

By Marc Lallanilla

Updated 01/06/19

Sprouting
Jennifer Deacon / Getty Images

Looking for inspirational quotes for Earth Day? The natural world has provided a bounty of philosophical insights for centuries, and the following compendium of nature quotes, environmental quotes, and inspirational quotations celebrate our common natural heritage.

Earth Day Quotes

  • In wilderness is the preservation of the world. -- Henry David Thoreau
  • We have met the enemy and he is us. -- Walt Kelly
  • I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. -- Frank Lloyd Wright
  • When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. -- John Muir
  • We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. -- Native American Proverb
  • The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it. -- Barry Commoner
  • Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees. -- David Letterman
  • He that plants trees loves others beside himself. -- Thomas Fuller
  • The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. -- Ralph Nader
  • There is a great need for the introduction of new values in our society, where bigger is not necessarily better, where slower can be faster, and where less can be more. -- Gaylord Nelson
  • Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead
  • For 200 years we've been conquering nature. Now we're beating it to death. -- Tom McMillan
  • Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me? -- Groucho Marx
  • What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? -- Henry David Thoreau
  • Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. — Bill Vaughan
  • The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world. -- Gaylord Nelson
  • Until a man duplicates a blade of grass, Nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favorable comparison with the products of Nature, the living cell of a plant, the final result of the rays of the sun, the mother of all life. -- Thomas Alva Edison
  • The earth is what we all have in common. -- Wendell Berry
  • To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. -- William Blake
  • 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
  • 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 realize we cannot eat money. -- Cree Indian Proverb
  • Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair. -- Kahlil Gibran