Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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“The gifts of the earth are to be shared, but gifts are not limitless. The generosity of the earth is not an invitation to take it all.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As we give thanks for the Earth, will we live in such a way that the Earth can be grateful for us? (2015)”
Robin Wall Kimmerer (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What a strange alchemy we have worked, turning earth around to destroy itself, using earth's own elements to wound it. ("Deify the Wolf" p66)”
Linda Hogan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Between earth and earth's atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant; there is never a drop more, never a drop less. This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself. ("Stories of Water" p106)”
Linda Hogan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most of us think of the earth as a living being and that we must live upon it with care and love and respect. The idea of subjugating the earth is the product of another mind. Even environmentalists, she maintains, are of another mind because they are not concerned so much with the sacred as with the idea of stewardship.”
Linda Hogan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we learn to align our own energy with that of the Earth's, we will move forward effortlessly. When we slow down and allow our senses to open, great transformations occur. Living on the planet Earth becomes living in the Garden of Eden. (p 212)”
Linda Hogan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never, beautiful Earth, never even at the height of the human storms have I forgotten you, my planet Earth, your forests and your fields, your oceans, the serenity of your mountains; the meadows, the continuing rivers, the incorruptible promise of returning spring.”
Edgar Pangborn (1909–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are challenged not just to imagine, but to demand the emancipation of earth from capital. For the earth to live, capitalism must die.”
Nick Estes wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only [he] could secure me, he being as rooted to the earth as a tree is. Only he could free me from raging forever between earth and sky - which is a predicament of great loneliness and loss. (Roimata, chapter 3 p23)”
Patricia Grace (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]f you Google "Great Acceleration" you see all these wonderful charts... socioeconomic trends and earth system trends... everything going up. ...[W]e naturally think going up means better. Oh no, because the things... are ecocidal trends... and earth system collapse measures [respectively].”
Michael Dowd (1958–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We live on the edge, perched on the boundary between planet Earth and the rest of the Universe. ...Every human civilization has seen the stars, but no one has touched them. Our home on Earth is the opposite: messy... full of things... we touch and tweak... The physical world is full of startling variety... But this diversity isn't random. Our world is full of patterns.”
Helen Czerski (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any alien visitor to Earth... would look at the ocean first. Any alien visitor who wants to know the dynamics of planet Earth would look at the ocean before they looked at the land. And yet, we don't see it. ...We don't see this engine that completely defines our planet, and that has to change. ...Now is a good time for that to change.”
Helen Czerski (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Until we Christians see that the Gospel's good news of redemption applies to the earth, as well as the earthling, we will proliferate the sin of raping God's good earth. God's work of redemption in Jesus Christ encompasses the whole of creation and provides the grounds for restoring the brokenness in the relationship of humankind to creation, and the relationship of both to God.”
Robert H. Meneilly (1925–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must reclaim a sense of reverence for the earth and a recognition of our essential relatedness to the earth.”
Robert H. Meneilly (1925–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Situated as we are between the old world and the new, and between the southern and northern Europe, all that we ought to covet upon earth is free trade, and fair equality. With more industry, with more enterprize, with more capital than any trading nation upon earth, it ought to be our constant cry, let every market be open, let us meet our rivals fairly, and we ask no more.”
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (1737–1805) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (17 February 1783), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXIII. Comprising the Period from the Tenth of May 1782, to the First of De…
“We also have a power to destroy the earth, and... it's probably unique. ...Destroy ourselves, destroy a large part of life in earth, not the bacteria... If we take ourselves out, we'll give it five million years and it will be indistinguishable, apart from ourselves.”
Nick Lane (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is the point of us being here on earth if everything's all about heaven? If You don't want to/don't care/can't change anything here on earth, what's the point really? If it's all completely random and just about struggling through to the end that will eventually come, why do we bother?”
Kopano Matlwa (born 1985) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book.”
Arthur Holmes (1890–1965) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Arthur Holmes, The Age of Earth (1913)
“Space is curved, time comes to an end... Our cycle is over, these images tell all. [...] The good-hearted man can live in this precise second... a sublime event: the passage of the cycle of Adamic man towards a new cycle of evolution, programmed on another earth, an earth prepared to receive the stored vibrations enriched by the authentic servants of the Rosy Cross.”
Joseph Di Mambro (1924–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Talking to a member of the OTS, quoted in Mayer & Siegler 1999
“[A]fterwards it diffused it self thro' the Italic Philosophy, the followers of which taught, that each Star was a World in the infinite Æthereal Space, containing Earth, Air and Æther; and that the Moon, not only was like our Earth, but inhabited by Animals of a larger size, and furnish'd with Plants of a more beautiful appearance.”
David Gregory (mathematician) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creation is not a passive process. Our mother, the earth, knows it is not a passive process; the earth is not a passive mother. She knows birth is active. It takes hurricanes, thunder, lightning and volcanic eruptions to move from winter to spring, to summer, to fall and back to winter. Creation is a struggle.”
Lee Maracle (1950–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“whether you consider a past maximal temperature to be "normal" or not, the fact is that the earth's maximal temperature did not sustain what we now wish to sustain. Whether the temperatures we're headed toward can sustain a large human population is...going to be an interesting discovery. Not something to be shrugged off with "It's been there before." The earth has. We haven't.”
Elizabeth Moon (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your pride, why should your pride be so restricted? Restricted to a mere fraction of this earth. This earth from which we have all evolved”
Lee Dorrian (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Buddhists try to escape from their life, while Christians attach greater importance to their life in heaven than to that on earth. As for believers of Tenrikyo, however, the greatest emphasis is always put on this life on earth. Neither life nor death can exist independently of God the Parent.”
Fukaya Tadamasa (1912–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Having a bit of earth amounts to nothing when the earth as a whole does not belong to everyone. ("Dry Season at La Toufaille")”
Édouard Glissant (1928–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His thesis was that life could develop only at a certain distance from the earth, since the earth itself constantly emits a corrupting gas, a so-called fluidum letale, which lames vital energies and sooner or later utterly extinguishes them.”
Patrick Süskind (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fiery catastrophe of the Earth expected at the end of the world could occur from the collision of the Earth with one of the wandering fragments or comets.”
John of Kronstadt (1829–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leo Tolstoy and writers like him, whose number is countless, have appeared and live on Earth to cloud and corrupt with their godlessness, faithlessness, and anarchy the multitude of people who follow them and read their blasphemous writings. Lord, destroy them from the Earth or turn them to faith, humble their demonic pride!”
John of Kronstadt (1829–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.”
Gina Lopez (1953–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prehistory is an epistemology of the earth. Nothing in the sciences of prehistory would have happened without the geological revolution of the early 19th century—think of the discoveries of fossils and tools and, later, cave paintings. Such discoveries gave depth and breadth to the earth itself and infused it with new meanings.”
Stefanos Geroulanos (born 1979) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We also have to note that this is a ‘school tour,’ a project that started during my time in 2007. For me, it was the most rewarding part of the entire reign and pageant experience. This is the real work. Miss Earth and Miss Philippines-Earth are deeply rooted in advocacy. We don’t just ‘talk’ about it, we actually do the ‘work,’ and we started it with public schools.”
Jeanne Harn (born 1982) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beauties for a cause: Miss Earth delegates defend pageant’s school events Inquirer.Net, 30 October 2025.
“Oh, wonderfully beautiful is God’s earth, and worthy of being delighted in! therefore shall I, till I am changed into ashes, rejoice in this beautiful earth!”
Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty (1748–1776) said by 1776 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the goods of he earth remain the earth's, and man does not own even the skin he is wrapped in. All he owns are the feelings of his heart." (chapter 3)”
Simone Schwarz-Bart (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They too are the earth, the swansongs of beggars sprawled out in brimming gutters. they are the earth. under snakeskin shoes and Mercedes tyres”
Niyi Osundare (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are all on earth to help others. What on earth the others are here for, I can't imagine.”
W. H. Auden (misattributed) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This quotation has been traced to John Foster Hall (1867–1945), an English comedian known as "The Reverend Vivian Foster, Vicar of Mirth". See: Edward Mendelson, "'We are all here on earth to help others...'", audensoci…
“Earth receives the seed and guards it, Trustfully it dies: Then what teeming life rewards it, For self-sacrifice. With green leaf and clustering blossom Clad, or golden fruit, See it from earth’s cheerless bosom Ever sunward shoot.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We used to be on the earth, ignorant of the earth, Ignorant of the treasure buried within it.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the four elements are seething in this cauldron (the world) None is at rest, neither earth nor fire nor water nor air Now earth takes the form of grass on account of desire Now water becomes air for the sake of this affinity, By way of unity water becomes fire Fire also becomes air in this expanse by reason of love.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What rays of wisdom poured on water and on land Ere earth could nourish seed, yield corn to our demand! The earth, a faithful trustee, gives back what we sow, No fraud, embezzlement, in its trust do we know.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church.”
Ferdinand Magellan (misattributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
Chief Seattle (misattributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth.”
David Hare (dramatist) (misattributed) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare Guesses at Truth (London: Macmillan, ([1827-48] 1867) p. 563.
“The pure memories given To help our joy on earth, when earth is past, Shall help our joy in heaven.”
Margaret Junkin Preston (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the one-hundredth part of the circumference of a circle is (scarcely different from) a plane, and as the Earth is an excessively large body, and a man exceedingly small (in comparison), the whole visible portion of the Earth consequently appears to a man on its surface to be perfectly plane.”
Bhāskara II (1114–1185) said by 1185 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
“And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; And that it was great pity, so it was, This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly; and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give, Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; And vice sometimes by action dignified.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”
Book Of Common Prayer (active around 850) bartlett, Public domain source
“All things decay with time: the forest sees The growth and downfall of her aged trees; That timber tall, which threescore lusters stood The proud dictator of the state-like wood,— I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak— Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.”
Robert Herrick (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When man cuts a tree, he is actually making his own coffin. It is not enough to plant one tree for each one he cuts. He may have to plant at least 50 trees or more. It is said that about 5 million people get cancer from polluted air.”
Mata Amritanandamayi (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The light of the guru’s grace helps us to see and remove the obstacles in our path. An ashram is not a mere cluster of inanimate buildings, temples and trees; rather it is the very embodiment of the sadguru’s grace. It is a vital, dynamic and living institution that stimulates the aspiration of the sincere student to attain the state of oneness.”
Mata Amritanandamayi (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source