The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. – Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

The desire to build a risk-free society has always been a sign of decadence. It has meant that the nation has given up, that it no longer believes in its destiny, that it has ceased to aspire to greatness, and has retired from history to pet itself. – Henry Fairlie, quoted in Conservation Foundation Letter, November 1981

We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man. – Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," 1967

In the sixties, you could always insult a guy by calling him “plastic.” It meant he was phony or superficial. The opposite of plastic was “real.” – Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, 2005