Earth Day is coming up on April 22, but you don’t need to wait until then to appreciate our planet and all that it provides for us with some Earth Day quotes. Throughout history, famous celebrities, historians, authors, and voices everywhere have inspired people through their Earth Day quotes about our planet. Below is a list of the best Earth Day quotes to help you get in the spirit of the holiday.
Our Favorite Earth Day Quotes
“If every day were #EarthDay we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
“I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.” — Mother Teresa
“We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.” — Barack Obama
“And if Nature herself cannot sustain her efforts long, how much less can man!” — Laozi
“It is a blessing to be the color of the earth; do you know how often flowers confuse me for home?” — Rupi Kaur
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.” — Rumi
“I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. ” — Nhat Hanh
“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 King Jr.
“I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” — Anne Frank
“If you can’t be in awe of Mother Nature, there’s something wrong with you.” — Alex Trebek
“Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” — Carl Sagan
“What about naming trees? … If we have a tree in our name, we want that tree to live.” — Jane Goodall
“The cheapest or most environmentally friendly product is the one you didn’t buy.” — Joshua Becker
“All we have to do is to wake up and change.” — Greta Thunberg
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” — Kahlil Gibran
“Time spent amongst trees is never wasted time.” — Katrina Mayer
“Collaboration has no hierarchy. The Sun collaborates with soil to bring flowers on the earth.” — Amit Ray
“The environment is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share.” — Lady Bird Johnson
“Dear old world, You are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.” — Lucy Maud Montgomery in Anne of Green Gables
“I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.” — Kurt Vonnegut
“The Earth has its music for those who will listen.” — Reginald Vincent Holmes
“What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” — Henry David Thoreau
“We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.” — Barbara Ward
“Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” — John Muir
“Earth laughs in flowers …” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“He that plants trees loves others besides himself.” — Thomas Fuller
“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.” — Jimmy Carter
“To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.” — Helen Keller
“Every day above earth is a good day.” — Ernest Hemingway
“The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.” — Barry Commoner
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” — Robert Swan
“As cheesy as it sounds, truly every day is Earth Day.” — Ashlan Gorse Cousteau
“It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.” — Dalai Lama
“We should care about the protection of people as much as we care about the protection of our planet—to me, these fights are the same.” — Leah Thomas
“See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. … We need silence to be able to touch souls.” — Mother Teresa
“One day I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of nature I met with in this charming season expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought.” — Daniel Boone
“The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.” — Paracelsus
“All of nature begins to whisper its secrets to us through its sounds. Sounds that were previously incomprehensible to our soul now become the meaningful language of nature.” — Rudolf Steiner
“Light in nature creates movement in color.” — Robert Delaunay
“The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.” — Harriet Jacobs
“Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.” — John Updike
“A light wind swept over the corn; and all nature laughed in the sunshine.” — Anne Brontë in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.” — Luigi Pirandello
“The divine is not something high above us. It is in heaven, it is in earth, it is inside us.” — Morihei Ueshiba
“The good Earth—we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.” — Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country
“Earth and Sky, Woods and Fields, Lakes and Rivers, the Mountain and the Sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” — John Lubbock
“The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.” — Chief Joseph
“Think of the power of the universe—turning the Earth, growing the trees. That’s the same power within you—if you’ll only have the courage and the will to use it.” — Charlie Chaplin
“Mask your brightness. Be at one with the dust of the earth. This is primal union.” — Lao Tzu
“We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, that fire can purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all.” — Oscar Wilde
“I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.” — Raquel Cepeda
“Don’t waste the Earth—it is our jewel!” — Buzz Aldrin
“The Earth is the Mother, I am her Son.” — Atharva Veda
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” — Rachel Carson
“Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!” — Yuri Gagarin
“Times are tough, but never forget the awe and majesty of life on this strange blue planet.” — Rebecca Helm
“The Earth is a tiny and fragile world. It needs to be cherished.” — Carl Sagan
“We are pilgrims, not settlers; this earth is our inn, not our home.” — John Heyl Vincent
“You can just imagine if everyone on earth did have one day where we just put all our minds together regardless where the force is, as long as it’s positive, and just meditate for even an hour that day. … the climate would be nice, the smog would leave.” — Bob Marley
“One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.” — Jack London
“Nothing is so cruel, so wanton, so unfeeling as nature; she moves with the weight of a glacier carrying everything before her.” — Clarence Darrow
“How Strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!” — Emily Dickinson
“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” — Albert Einstein
“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” — Rachel Carson
“There is no domestic issue more important to America in the long run than the conservation and proper use of our natural resources, including fresh water, clean air, tillable soil, forests, wilderness, habitat for wildlife, minerals and recreational assets.” — Gaylord Nelson
“Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment.” — Gaylord Nelson
“The incredible beauty of the earth as seen from space results largely from the fact that our planet is covered with living things. What gives vibrant colors and exciting variety to the surface of the earth is the fact that it is literally a living organism.” — René Dubos
“The total effect of the environmental crisis cannot be evaluated because it is spread throughout the whole social structure.” — René Dubos
“Nature provides exceptions to every rule.” — Margaret Fuller
“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.” — Marie Curie
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
“We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us.” — Mary Daly
“On Spaceship Earth there are no passengers; everybody is a member of the crew. We have moved into an age in which everybody’s activities affect everybody else.” — Marshall McLuhan
“The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.” — Johannes Kepler
“I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men’s beginning to redeem themselves.” — Henry David Thoreau
Were you inspired by these Earth Day quotes? Check out our list of Earth Day poems for more inspiration.
Did we miss any of your favorite Earth Day quotes? Come share in our We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook!
