The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.

 –Genesis 2:15

_We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

 –Native American Proverb_

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

–Henry David Thoreau_

There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.

–Robert Orben_

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 Bush, 41st President of the United States, June 1989_

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.

–Marshall McLuhan

 

Gore says he would rather protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge than gain the energy [from drilling for oil there]. But this is a false choice. We can do both – taking out energy, and leaving only footprints. Critics of increased exploration and production ignore the remarkable technological advances in the last 10 years that have dramatically decreased the environmental impact of oil and gas exploration.

 –Candidate George W. Bush, September, 2000

 

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_

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: “Look at this Godawful mess.”

–Art Buchwald, 1970

_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 off like autumn leaves.

–John Muir_

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_

The uniformity of earth’s life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled.

–Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell

 

If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth and its inhabitants, our sense of gratitude, our willingness to recognize the sacred character of habitat, our capacity for the awesome, for the numinous quality of every earthly reality.

 –Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth

 

As crude a weapon as the cave man’s club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life.

 –Rachel Carson, The Silent Spring

 

I think man’s gradual, creeping contamination of the plant, his sending up of dust into the air, his strontium additive in our bones, his discharge of industrial poisons into rivers that once flowed clear, his mixing of chemicals with fog on the east wind add up to a fantasy of such grotesque proportions as to make everything said on the subject seem pale and anemic by contrast.

 –E.B. White

 

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,/We fell them down and turn them into paper,/That we may record our emptiness.

 –Kahlil Gibran

 

(Each week this column features quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion here. They may be sent to Gleanings, c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470 or emailed to editor@thebee.com.)