The voice of the natural world would be, "Could you please give us space and leave us alone to get along with our own lives and our own ways, because we actually know much better how to do it then when you start interfering."
Jane GoodallRead
Well, in some ways we're not successful at all. We're destroying our home. That's not a bit successful.
Interpretation
Success cannot be measured by achievements when we harm our environment.
Jane Goodall emphasizes that true success should not only be defined by personal or societal accomplishments but also by our responsibility towards the planet. Despite any advances we may have made, if we are causing destruction to our environment, we are failing in a fundamental way to respect and care for our home on Earth.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a nature conservation seminar to illustrate the true meaning of success.
The voice of the natural world would be, "Could you please give us space and leave us alone to get along with our own lives and our own ways, because we actually know much better how to do it then when you start interfering."
We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.
I was born in London in England in 1934. I went through, as a child, the horrors of World War II, through a time when food was rationed and we learned to be very careful, and we never had more to eat than what we needed to eat. There was no waste. Everything was used.
Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutan shave been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest,living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.
There are an awful lot of scientists today who believe that before very long we shall have unraveled all the secrets of the universe. There will be no puzzles anymore. To me, it'd be really, really tragic because I think one of the most exciting things is this feeling of mystery, feeling of awe, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it and how it has emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is and it is perfect and why.
In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.
Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.
I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.
I flew helicopters, which actually is the second best view of the earth. The first best view is, I think, a little bit higher.
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
I go to the mountains for an adventure and each time I pray I will get up and down again.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
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