"The assumptions that we’ve made about how the natural world operates and what our relationship is to it are no longer tenable. These sacred truths that we’ve grown up with – ‘nature is infinite’; ‘growth is progress’; ‘science and technology will solve our problems’; ‘all of nature is at our disposal’; ‘we can manage the planet’ – offer no comfort as we enter the last decade of this century. ... to continue to subscribe to these assumptions is to insure the destruction of civilization as we know it."
— Anita Gordon and David Suzuki in It’s a Matter of Survival. Harvard University Press, 1991.
"The sin of pride tempts us to imagine that the world exists for our use alone, and Mammon, the god of greed, leads us down the path to environmental destruction."
— Carl Pope in "Sierra," Nov-Dec 1998
"We are of Earth and belong to You. Every step that we take upon You should be done in a sacred manner; each step should be as a prayer." — Black Elk, Native American spiritual leader
"It should not be believed that all the beings exist for humanity. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes, and not for the sake of something else."
— Moses Maimonides, medieval Jewish philosopher
"The bow is a technique of awareness. We often address the physical dimensions of landscape, but they re inseparable from the spiritual dimensions that we are able to behave like barbarians. If the land is incorporated into the same moral universe that you occupy, then your bow is an acknowledgment of your participation in that universe and a recognition that all you bow to is included in your moral universe. If you behave as though there were no spiritual dimension to the place, then you can treat the place like an object."
— Barry Lopez, on explaining his propensity for bowing when he encounters some wonder of nature. From "Sierra," Nov/Dec 98.