When a man says to me, “I have the intensest love of nature,” at once I know that he has none. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1857

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

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. – Ralph Nader, quoted in Linda Botts, ed., Loose Talk, 1980

We live in a web of ideas, a fabric of our own making. – Joseph Chilton Pearce