40+ Inspiring Eco Friendly Quotes for Your Sustainable Life
Ready to reduce your impact? These eco friendly quotes will provide food for thought and help you stick to a more sustainable lifestyle!
Whether you’re getting ready for Earth Day or just want some motivation to keep you focused on your sustainable lifestyle, these quotes about eco friendly living are just the thing.
These eco friendly quotes are from some of the best and brightest thinkers, and they make it easy to understand just why it’s so important to care for the planet.
Working hard to reduce your impact? Simplify the process by finding the best zero waste bathroom swaps!
Eco Friendly Quotes about Green Living
We as a society are becoming so much more aware of our impact on the world. What we buy, how we travel, and even everyday choices like what we eat, all have environmental consequences.
An eco-friendly mindset is the first step towards more sustainable living. These quotes make it easy to see just why it’s so important that we all commit to living more sustainably.
These frugal sustainable living tips make it so much easier to live a more eco friendly life on a budget.
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” – Robert Swan
“Customers are becoming more and more concerned about the environment. They don’t want to associate themselves with any product or brand which is not working hard to protect the environment.” – Pooja Agnihotri, 17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail
“There are so many problems to solve on this planet first before we begin to trash other worlds.” – E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
“No one motorist can cause a traffic jam. But no traffic jam can exist without individual motorists. We are stuck in traffic because we are the traffic. The ways we live our lives, the actions we take and don’t take, can feed the systemic problems, and they can also change them…” – Jonathan Safran Foer, We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”- Rachel Carson
“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. ” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The nation behaves well if it treats its natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss, Lorax
Quotes about Climate Change
Modern practices like factory farming and fast fashion have a huge impact on climate change. A slower, more thoughtful lifestyle has so many benefits, not only for the world, but for our health too.
Learn how to be sustainable in everyday life to reduce your carbon footprint!
“It shouldn’t be the consumer’s responsibility to figure out what’s cruel and what’s kind, what’s environmentally destructive and what’s sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don’t need the option of buying children’s toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don’t need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.” – Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
“Human use, population, and technology have reached that certain stage where mother Earth no longer accepts our presence with silence.” – The Dalai Lama
“Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions that sustain life.” – George Monbiot
“Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one’s special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.” – Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
“The thing that I champion is sustainability. My terror is that suddenly, we see it as a luxury, not an essential. That’s a danger.” – Kevin McCloud
Zero Waste Quotes
Now that we understand the impact that products like plastic have on the earth, it’s more important than ever to limit the amount of packaging we use.
But, even eco-friendly packaging is made using fossil fuels. We can cut back on a lot of waste by simply consuming less and reusing what we already have.
“Refuse what you do not need; reduce what you do need; reuse what you consume; recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse; and rot (compost) the rest.” – Bea Johnson, Zero Waste Home
“The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding.
Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.” – Wendell Berry
“We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.” – Anne Marie Bonneau, Zero Waste Chef
“I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.” – Mother Teresa
“There is no such thing as ‘away. ‘ So, when we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.” – Annie Leonard
“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” – Gaylord Nelson
“Recycling should really be viewed as a last resort rather than the first line of defense, we need to be recycling less, not more.” – Kathryn Kellogg, Going Zero Waste
Quotes about Conscious Consumerism
Conscious consumerism is the process of rethinking your consumer tendencies. Why do you shop? What do you buy? Who do you shop from? What happens when you’re done with an item?
Changing your shopping habits is one of the most powerful ways to live sustainably while supporting amazing small businesses committed to building a better world.
If your shopping habits feel out of control, try this no spend challenge or check out these 7 questions to ask yourself before buying something new.
I also created a step-by-step workbook to help you shift how you think about shopping.
“Buy less, choose well, make it last. Quality rather than quantity: That is true sustainability. If people only bought beautiful things rather than rubbish, we wouldn’t have climate change!” – Vivienne Westwood
“As consumers, we have so much power to change the world by just being careful in what we buy.” – Emma Watson
“Everything we personally own that’s made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we’re either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf.” – Yvon Chouinard
“If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, designed, or removed from production.” – Pete Seeger
Sustainability Quotes
The decisions we make today will have an impact on future generations. And while change doesn’t happen overnight, every little bit counts!
These quotes on sustainability might even inspire you to make some simple changes in your own life!
There are so many small changes you can make to live more sustainably. I highly recommend zooming in on your local community as much as possible.
“It is better to buy from a small, privately owned local store than from a chain store. It is better to buy a good product than a bad one. Do not buy anything you don’t need. Do as much as you can for yourself. If you cannot do something for yourself, see if you have a neighbor who can do it for you. Do everything you can to see that your money stays as long as possible in the local community.” – Wendell Berry
“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.” – Aldo Leopold
“The environment is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.” – Lady Bird Johnson
“We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something fragile that’s only one — it’s all we have.” – Margaret Mead
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall
“The earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs but not every man’s greed” – Mahatma Gandhi
When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.” – Alanis Obomosawin
Environmental Quotes about Nature
We rely on our environment for so many things: food, shelter, and water. But it’s also a source of tranquility and beauty, which we should never take for granted. Being connected to our surroundings makes us more inclined to protect them.
This safe plastic numbers chart will help you reduce your plastic waste and minimize pollution. Make a simple change, like using these plastic wrap alternatives instead of buying more when you run out.
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” – John Muir
“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” – Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” – Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” – William Blake
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We are not above nature, we are a part of nature.” – Jennifer Nini
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.” – Leo Tolstoy
“The earth is a fine place and worth fighting for.” – Ernest Hemingway
Were these eco-friendly quotes helpful?
Did you find a new quote to inspire your sustainable lifestyle? Is there one we should add to this list? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
