142 Environmental Stewardship Quotes

Following is our list of environmental stewardship quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about stewards of the earth.

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Famous Environmental Stewardship Quotes

Our stewardship of the Earth is brief. We owe it to those who follow to keep that in perspective, to be responsible passengers along the way. — George H. W. Bush

It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live. — Dalai Lama

The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations. — Pope John Paul II

The one principle that surrounds everything else is that of stewardship; that we are the managers of everything that God has given us — Larry Burkett

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope. — Wendell Berry

In fact, because of their connection to the land, farmers do more to protect and preserve our environment than almost anyone else. They are some of the best environmentalists around. — Ike Skelton

To be human is to care for your fellow human beings and protecting the environment. — Jacque Fresco

We all have an obligation as citizens of this earth to leave the world a healthier, cleaner, and better place for our children and future generations. — Blythe Danner

We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provisions for future days. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

We focus on sustainability not because we're environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients. — Larry Fink

Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever. — Arron Wood

Conservation means the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of men — Gifford Pinchot

The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture. — Gaylord Nelson

We try to make earth-friendly decisions whenever we can, as it's part of our brand DNA. — Stella McCartney

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

Short Environmental Stewardship Quotes

  • Raising awareness on the most pressing environmental issues of our time is more important than ever. — Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense. — Ronald Reagan
  • Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved — Phil Harding
  • Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man. — Stewart Udall
  • We learned that economic growth and environmental protection can and should go hand in hand. — Christopher Dodd
  • If the environment were a bank, it would have been saved by now — Bernie Sanders
  • What's near and dear to my heart is cooperative conservation. — Gale Norton
  • A sound eco-environment is the most basic public good that benefits all. — Xi Jinping

What Is Environmental Stewardship Quotes

All over the world the wildlife that I write about is in grave danger. It is being exterminated by what we call the progress of civilization. — Gerald Durrell

What gives these corporations like CONOCO, SHELL, EXXON, DIASHAWA, ITT, RIO TINTO ZINC, and the WORLD BANK a right which supercedes or is superior to my human right to live on my land, or that of my family, my community, my nation, our nations, and to us as women? — Winona LaDuke

Is a park any better than a coal mine? What's a mountain got that a slag pile hasn't? What would you rather have in your garden--an almond tree or an oil well? — Jean Giraudoux

Wealth and riches, that is, an estate above what sufficeth our real occasions and necessities, is in no other sense a 'blessing' than as it is an opportunity put into our hands, by the providence of God, of doing more good. — John Tillotson

Stewards Of The Earth Quotes

I want to challenge all of you as people of deep conscience, people who are environment stewards of the earth and oceans ... By changing what you eat, you will change the entire contract between the human species and the natural world. — James Cameron

The future of our children is a trust we have been given. To conserve and grow, not to squander wastefully on needless excesses. The earth is a trust, to protect and to honor. Our home, our livelihood, our future rests in the quality of our stewardship. Let us become better stewards. — Helen Caldicott

Let us be good stewards of the Earth we inherited. All of us have to share the Earth's fragile ecosystems and precious resources, and each of us has a role to play in preserving them. If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it. — Kofi Annan

We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are. — Stephen Jay Gould

The belief that we can manage the Earth and improve on Nature is probably the ultimate expression of human conceit, but it has deep roots in the past and is almost universal. — Rene Dubos

We've have to heed our Biblical obligation to be good stewards of the Earth after leaving the Garden of Eden. — Van Jones

We should conceive of ourselves not as rulers of Earth, but as highly powerful, conscious stewards: The Earth is given to us in trust, and we can screw it up or make it work well and sustainably. — Sayings

From beginning to end, Scripture repeatedly emphasizes God's ownership of everything: "To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it" .When I grasp that I'm a steward, not an owner, it totally changes my perspective. — Randy Alcorn

As stewards of God's creation, we are called to make the earth a beautiful garden for the human family. — Pope Francis

A lot in the faith-based community, a lot of fundamentalist groups are - are now saying, you know, the Earth is the lord and the fullness there of, and we have an obligation to be good stewards of the planet. — Al Gore

Stewardship Quotes

The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. — Rachel Carson

The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Uniformity is not nature's way; diversity is nature's way. — Vandana Shiva

I was once young and now I am old, but not once have I been witness to God's failure to supply my need when first I had given for the furtherance of His work. He has never failed in His promise, so I cannot fail in my service to Him. — William Carey

When a man becomes a Christian, he becomes industrious, trustworthy and prosperous. Now, if that man, when he gets all he can and saves all he can, does not give all he can, I have more hope for Judas Iscariot than for that man! — John Wesley

I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 per week. — John D. Rockefeller

Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance. — Ban Ki-moon

Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze, who seek for goods before they seek for God. — Bernard of Clairvaux

We are a part of everything that is beneath us, above us, and around us. Our past is our present, our present is our future, and our future is seven generations past and present. — Winona LaDuke

Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. — Parker J. Palmer

Environmental Sustainability Quotes

Quite frankly, there is no answer to climate change without substantially, dramatically, increasing the amount of renewable energy in the global energy system. — Christiana Figueres

When future generations judge those who came before them on environmental issues, they may conclude "they didn't know": let us not go down in history as the generations who knew, but didn't care — Mikhail Gorbachev

The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right — Donella Meadows

Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development. — Anna Lindh

This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage. — Eric Pianka

Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours. — Denis Hayes

Where the quality of life goes down for the environment, the quality of life goes down for humans. — George Holland

The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive. — Paul Hawken

No institutions in modern society are better equipped to catalyze the necessary transition to a sustainable world than colleges and universities. They have access to the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders of today. What they do matters to the wider public. — David W. Orr

Our presence on this planet does not seem to be sustainable. Our technical civilization makes up particularly vulnerable. There is talk all over the scientific community about climate change. Many of them [scientists] agree, the end of human life on earth is assured. — Werner Herzog

Biblical Stewardship Quotes

The only investment I ever made which has paid consistently increasing dividends is the money I have given to the Lord. — James L. Kraft

You haven't lived until you've died in California — Mort Sahl

Never measure your generosity by what you give, but rather by what you have left. — Fulton J. Sheen

Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous; teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost. — Ignatius of Loyola

Giving is more than a responsibility-it is a privilege; more than an act of obedience-it is evidence of our faith. — William Arthur Ward

Give naught, get same. Give much, get same. — Malcolm Forbes

[When I die] if I leave behind me ten pounds...you and all mankind [may] bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber. — John Wesley

Even if I give the whole of my worth to Him, He will find a way to give back to me much more than I gave. — Charles Spurgeon

He that gives all, though but little, gives much; because God looks not to the quantity of the gift, but to the quality of the givers. — Francis Quarles

Do not give, as many rich men do, like a hen that lays her eggs ...and then cackles. — Henry Ward Beecher

Environmental Responsibility Quotes

Just like a single cell, the character of our lives is determined not by our genes but by our responses to the environmental signals that propel life. — Bruce H. Lipton

The body is incredibly adaptable and responsive to the environment we put it in. — Rhonda Patrick

As I became more interested in behavior from the standpoint of neurobiology, the stress-response became really interesting. What stress physiology is about is - when there is a new environmental challenge, how does an individual adapt? It seemed like a natural transition. — Robert M. Sapolsky

Everything we personally own that’s made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we’re either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf. — Yvon Chouinard

Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God's gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them. — Wendell Berry

Nuclear power will help provide the electricity that our growing economy needs without increasing emissions. This is truly an environmentally responsible source of energy. — Michael Burgess

Nuclear power will help provide the electricity that our growing economy needs without increasing emissions. This is truly an environmentally responsible source of energy. — Michael C. Burgess

White males are the most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. — Robin Morgan

For nearly 11 years, now, we have been on this mission; we call it, "climbing Mt. Sustainability", a mountain higher than Everest, to meet at that point at the top that symbolizes zero footprint-zero environmental impact. Sustainable: taking nothing, doing no harm. — Ray Anderson

The favorite statistic is that the U.S. contains 6 to 7% of the world population but consumes more than half the world's resources and is responsible for that fraction of the total environmental pollution. But this statistic hides another vital fact: that not everyone in the U.S. is so affluent. — Barry Commoner

Conserving Environment Quotes

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry. — Thomas Fuller

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed. — Mahatma Gandhi

Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die. - Gil Scott-Heron

Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die. — Gil Scott-Heron

At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rain forest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity — Chico Mendes

While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. — Barry Goldwater

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

When you defile the pleasant streams, And the wild bird's abiding place, You massacre a million dreams, And cast your spittle in God's face — John Drinkwater

In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops. — Paul Brooks

Once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price — Ansel Adams

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

Environment Conservation Quotes

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them — Aldo Leopold

Wilderness itself is the basis of all our civilization. I wonder if we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness the right to live on? — Margaret Murie

The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. — Aldo Leopold

Man is a blind, witless, low brow, anthropocentric clod who inflicts lesions upon the earth. — Ian McHarg

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. — Mahatma Gandhi

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. — Theodore Roosevelt

Show me a healthy community with a healthy economy and I will show you a community that has its green infrastructure in order and understands the relationship between the built and the unbuilt environment. — Will Rogers

The two most abundant forms of power on earth are solar and wind, and they're getting cheaper and cheaper. — Ed Begley, Jr.

Conservation must become before recreation. — Prince Charles

People Writing About Environmental Stewardship

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush
quotes on service, education

207 1147
Read quotes by Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama
quotes on life, love and kindness

1464 21491
Read quotes by Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II
quotes on love, family and hope

490 6883
Read quotes by Larry Burkett

Larry Burkett
quotes on leadership, money and education

31 374
Read quotes by Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry
quotes on community, life and nature

487 3716
Read quotes by Ike Skelton

Ike Skelton
quotes on education, slavery and leadership

16 345

More Environmental Stewardship Quotes

We must strive to become good ancestors. — Ralph Nader

But if one wishes to be absolute master of all, to obtain the entire inheritance, and to exclude his brothers from even a third or fifth part, he is not a brother, but a harsh tyrant, a rude savage, nay, more, an insatiable beast that would devour the whole sweet banquet with his own gaping mouth. — Gregory of Nyssa

It strikes me as being morally repulsive and intellectually absurd that people die of want in a world of surplus. — Bob Geldof

I believe in a sound, strong environmental policy that protects the health of our people and a wise stewardship of our nation's natural resources. — Ronald Reagan

Our health relies entirely on the vitality of our fellow species on Earth. — Harrison Ford

For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal. — Thomas Jefferson

Man is rated the highest animal, at least among all animals who returned the questionnaire. — Robert Breault

There is no doubt that we live in an age of unprecedented, and sometimes terrifying, technological advance where the speed of advance so often outstrips the necessary ethical considerations. — Prince Charles

A protest meeting on the issue of environmental abuse is not a convocation of accusers, it is a convocation of the guilty. The realization ought to clear the smog of self-righteousness that has always conventionally hovered over these occasions, and let us see the work that is to be done. — Wendell Berry

A food waste reduction hierarchy-feeding people first, then animals, then recycling, then composting-serves to show how productive use can be made of much of the excess food that is currently contributing to leachate and methane formation in landfills. — Carol Browner

After all, the living book of God's creation lies open for all to see; it points constantly to the divine calling for which we were placed in nature. Nature is a continual admonition to us, for nowhere has God's creation departed so far from its origin and primeval purpose as in the human race. — Eberhard Arnold

I think the work in front of us is the first work task given our forbearers, which is to care for the garden. Now because it's the first thing commanded, maybe it's the first thing forgotten. But it is the first admonition and it is absolutely unequivocal. It is part of right livelihood. — Wes Jackson

Before it's too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth. We need a decisive 'yes' to care for creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk making the situation of decay irreversible. — Pope Benedict XVI

Every time we lose a species webreak a life chain which has evolved over 3.5 billion years. — Jeff McNeely

It is God's world still. It has been given to man not absolutely, but in trust, that man may work out in it the will of God; given-may we not say?-just as a father gives a child a corner of his great garden, and says, "There, that is yours; now cultivate it." — Phillips Brooks

One cannot use with impunity the different categories of beings-animals, plants, the natural elements-simply as one wishes, according to economic needs. One must take into account the nature of each being and its mutual connection in an ordered system, which is the cosmos. — Pope John Paul II

To a large degree, we are still bound to the modern scientific spirit, that characterizes reality merely by its material and mechanic aspects, without including life, consciousness and the intimate communion with that which poets, musicians and artists bring us in their magnificent works. — Leonardo Boff

There is in all animals a sense of duty that man condescends to call instinct. — Robert Breault

Why does God bless us with abundance? So we can have enough to live on and then use the rest for all manner of good works that alleviate spiritual and physical misery. Enough for us; abundance for others. — John Piper

We do not have any respect, let alone reverence, for the world of nature because we do not have any respect, let alone reverence, for ourselves. It is because we cripple and mutilate ourselves that we cripple and mutilate everything else as well. Our contemporary crisis is really our own depravity writ large. — Philip Sherrard

We have not wondered enough at the delights God has given us to appreciate them, and be good stewards. We have overworked the land, poured pollutants into river and stream, fouled the air we breathe with gas fumes and chemical smoke spiraling up from industrial chimneys. We have sown the wind. We are reaping the whirlwind. — Madeleine L'Engle

The poor old earth which has mothered us and nursed us we treat with scant respect. Our awe and veneration we reserve for the worlds we know not of. Our senses sell us out. The mud on our shoes disenchants us. — John Burroughs

The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the life-giving earth. — Stewart Udall

Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God's creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of his needs. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We punish the body and strip the earth. And we do it in pursuit of a so-called holiness that smacks of the bogus, that denies the gifts of God, that makes us marauders on the earth. — Joan D. Chittister

Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough? — Isaac Asimov

The issue of world environment has a special kind of urgency... The issue is one of rich peoples and poor peoples, of the growing gap between the two, and of the rich fouling their own nests. — Gilbert F. White

Take care how you place your moccasins upon the Earth, step with care, for the faces of the future generations are looking up from the Earth waiting their turn for life. — Wilma Mankiller

In losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of creation. — Wendell Berry

Feeling that morality has nothing to do with the way you use the resources of the world is an idea that can't persist much longer. If it does, then we won't. — Barbara Kingsolver

Significantly, God in Genesis 1 pronounces the rest of creation "good" before humanity is created. The psalmist and the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel can speak of mountains, trees, sun, and moon praising God. Unlike an office complex or gymnasium, which have no value if people do not inhabit them, creation can glorify and bring God delight apart from human presence. — Rodney Clapp

Priestly stewardship suggests that creation is not just for us, that it has purpose independent of the uses we can make of it. All of creation-human and nonhuman alike-exists ultimately for God and to the praise of God. — Rodney Clapp

How far must suffering and misery go before we see that even in the day of vast cities and powerful machines, the good earth is our mother and that if we destroy her, we destroy ourselves? — Paul Sears

Man has sought to take from the natural world not only that which is necessary for his stability and survival, but often seeks to satisfy his perceived and ultimately false psychological needs, such as his need for self-display, luxuries and the like. Twenty percent of humanity consumes eighty percent of the world's wealth and is accountable for an equal percentage of the world's ecological catastrophes. — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople

Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh. — Michel de Montaigne

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