Wangari Maathai

"The work is never finished, but it is always worth doing."

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."

"You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you give them the chance to become partners in the process of change."

"In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground."

"When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of justice."

"You stand up for what you believe in, even when you stand alone."

"The biggest thing that we can do is to make sure we are inspirational to our young people."

"In struggling to save the lives of wild animals, we end up saving our own skins."

"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing."

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, we feel a responsibility for the actions of others."

"I have learned that it is not enough to just protect wild places. We must also protect the rights of the people who live there."

"Taking action is the cure for despair."

"You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself, that understands itself."

"The dictator doesn't fear the critic; he fears the person who takes action."

"Every time you consume products that have come from the forests, you are responsible for their destruction."

"As long as you believe it is impossible, you will not even attempt it."

"We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to conserve the environment so that we can pass on our natural heritage."

"When we see the world as composed of degraded forests, dry lands and wasteland, we lose our sense of what is possible."

"I learned that if I was to be part of the solution, I had to first be part of the problem."

"The more you understand yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others."

"We have made a terrible mistake by divorcing ourselves from nature. We have forgotten that we are part of nature."

"Whether we like it or not, we are all interconnected in the web of life on this planet."

"You cannot kill a movement that has chosen to become a religion."

"It is not enough to just say you care about the environment. You must act on your beliefs."

"The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference."

"When you heal yourself, you heal others. When you heal others, you heal the Earth."

"In our capacity as human beings we can choose to repair the world."

"I have come to understand that liberation is not just freedom from something; it is freedom to do something."

"The struggle for democratic freedom and the struggle to protect the environment are one and the same."

"We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to be relentless."