The First Lady is an unpaid public servant elected by one person - her husband.
Lady Bird JohnsonRead
There is much the government can do and should do to improve the environment. But even more important is the individual who plants a tree or cleans a corner of neglect. For it is the individual who himself benefits, and also protects a heritage of beauty for his children and future generations.
Interpretation
Individual actions toward the environment are crucial for preserving beauty for future generations.
This quote emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility in environmental conservation. While government actions are significant, it is the personal efforts of individuals, such as planting trees and cleaning neglected areas, that create immediate benefits and ensure a lasting impact on the environment for future generations.
In practice
In a speech about environmental responsibility, I might quote Lady Bird Johnson to emphasize the power of individual actions.
The First Lady is an unpaid public servant elected by one person - her husband.
Any committee is only as good as the most knowledgeable, determined and vigorous person on it. There must be somebody who provides the flame.
I want us to know our world. If I lived in North Georgia on up through the Appalachians, I would be just as crazy about the mountain laurel as I am about [Texas] bluebonnets.
Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.
Wildflowers are the stuff of my heart!
Become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid.
The soil of their native land is dear to all the hearts of mankind.
It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.
In the spring rain, The pond and the river Have become one.
If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic.
It's a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It's an interesting place to be. I recommend it.
Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.
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