Conservation of Resources Quotes

In the loss of skill, we lose stewardship; in losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of Creation. It is possible - as our experience in this good land shows - to exile ourselves from Creation, and to ally ourselves with the principle of destruction - which is, ultimately, the principle of nonentity. It is to be willing in general for being to not-be. And once we have allied ourselves with that principle, we are foolish to think that we can control the results. (pg. 303, The Gift of Good Land)

Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children.

My father, OK, when we first got old enough to hunt, this was his rule: If you shoot it, you come home and eat it. Otherwise you do not shoot it, OK? You don't just kill something for the sake of killing it, OK? If you kill it, you gotta grill it, so to speak.

When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them.

Rules are to be initiated for the allotment of scarce raw materials etc; and their use and processing for other than war, or otherwise absolutely vital, goods is prohibited.

We are strong supporters of energy efficiency. The question is: what is the most appropriate way of doing it?

In our enthusiasm to dominate nature and to produce more material good - goods - we have transformed means into ends.

He who has far to ride spares his horse.

The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking.

Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation in turn becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources - and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on in the future.

My mother was my biggest role model. She taught me to hate waste. We never wasted anything.

Habit: The great economizer of energy.

Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate waste.

Nothing is wasted.

The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

Designers must be increasingly sensitive to our Earth's dwindling resources. It is our responsibility.

In fact, quantitative findings of any material and energy changes preserve their full context only through their being seen and understood as parts of a natural order.

If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a happier or a better population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.

Less is more, unless you're Al Gore.

… the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I switch off lights like a maniac. I drive at reasonable speeds so that I don't waste petrol.

The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.