Dig a trench through a landfill and you will see layers of phone books like geographical strata or layers of cake…. During a recent landfill dig in Phoenix, I found newspapers dating from 1952 that looked so fresh you might read one over breakfast. – William Rathje, The Economist, 8 September 1990

Racial injustice, war, urban blight, and environmental rape have a common denominator in our exploitative economic system. – Channing E. Phillips, speech, Washington, D.C., 22 April 1970

Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely colored by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, molded by your surroundings, by the character of the people with whom you come in contact every day… – Orison Swett Marden

One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England. – Glenn T. Seaborg, Atomic Energy Commission chairman, speech, Argonne National La