I see an America whose rivers and valleys and lakes hills and streams and plains the mountains over our land and nature's wealth deep under the earth are protected as the rightful heritage of all the people.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of protecting America's natural resources as a shared legacy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's quote advocates for the preservation of America's natural landscape, emphasizing that rivers, valleys, lakes, and other resources are not merely commodities, but rather a collective heritage that belongs to all citizens. This call to action highlights the responsibility of society to safeguard the environment for current and future generations, recognizing nature's value beyond its economic aspects.
In practice
During a speech on environmental policy, one could quote Roosevelt to emphasize nature conservation.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.
Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.
Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.
To drown a river beneath its own impounded water, by damming, is to kill what it was and to settle for something else. When the damming happens without good reason . . . then it's a tragedy of diminishment for the whole planet, a loss of one more wild thing, leaving Earth just a little flatter and tamer and simpler and uglier than before.
The wind sounded of Mother Earth's forsaken and abandoned cries.
Nature promotes mutualism. The flower nourishes the bee. The river waters quench the thirst of all living beings. And trees provide a welcoming home to so many birds and animals. There is a rhythm to this togetherness.
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