Wangari Maathai Quotes (21 Quotes)

It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.

We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.

You must not deal only with the symptoms. You have to get to the root causes by promoting environmental rehabilitation and empowering people to do things for themselves. What is done for the people without involving them cannot be sustained.

Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys from time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.

The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty, ... While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.

In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.

The people are learning that you cannot leave decisions only to leaders. Local groups have to create the political will for change, rather than waiting for others to do things for them. That is where positive, and sustainable, change begins.

African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.

If they had resources, they would not be killing each other over grazing ground and water.

If you want the future generations to live in peace, we must invest in the protection of the environment and we must train especially our young people so that they don't think, for example, the whole world is like Japan.

All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.

It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.

The privilege of a higher education, especially outside Africa, broadened my original horizon and encouraged me to focus on the environment, women and development in order to improve the quality of life of people in my country in particular and in the African region in general.

I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.

It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.

I would be on my knees looking at them and admiring them, trying to have them on my neck, until my mother would call and wonder what ... I was doing in the river.

Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.

Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious.

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.

We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.