It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.
Interpretation
True love and peace can lead to a lasting appreciation for nature, which we must pass on to future generations.
This quote emphasizes the importance of cultivating love and peace in our lives, as these values can create a harmonious existence on Earth. By instilling these qualities in our children and teaching them to respect and honor nature, we ensure that the beauty and joy found in the natural world remains a part of our lives for generations to come.
In practice
In a speech addressing environmental issues, one might quote this to inspire action.
Acknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world - water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution - if we tackle them with courage and foresight.
The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine.
I would say the biggest handicap we have right now is some nutcases in our country that don't believe in global warming. I think they are going to change their position because of pressure from individuals, because the evidence of the ravages of global warming is already there.
If I were president, I'd be very glad to see the Palestinians have a nation recognized by the United Nations. There's no downside to it.
My understanding of racial discrimination as a child was highly distorted because the most prominent man in Archery was an African-American bishop. When he came home from up north, where he was in charge of A.M.E. churches in five states, it was front-page news. He was the most successful man in my life.
Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings.
Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to seven billion people.
There's a lot of money to be made by strip-mining and drilling the dirtiest oil on the planet. But why should the rest of us pay the price?
And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.
I had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental, only cyclical. The same sun appeared each morning, swept over the valley, and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted in the spring.
Back and forth she went each morning by the river, spring arriving once again; foolish, foolish spring, breaking open its tiny buds, and what she couldn’t stand was how—for many years, really—she had been made happy by such a thing. She had not thought she would ever become immune to the beauty of the physical world, but there you were. The river sparkled with the sun that rose, enough that she needed her sunglasses.
Much of our waste problem is to be accounted for by the intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor-savers and gadgets that we have become addicted to.
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