The quotes below serve as an inspiration for our vision, mission, and values — and the work we do every day. We invite you to submit the quotes that inspire you in the comments below ― we will incorporate the top quotes we receive from you in the section below:
“I put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
― Thomas Edison, 1931
“And to lose the chance to see frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach ― why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States of America
“In 20 years more than half of new cars manufactured will be fully electric… I feel actually quite safe in that bet. That’s a bet I will put money on… [The Tesla Model S is about ] “breaking a spell… The world has been under this illusion that electric cars cannot be as good as gasoline cars, that if you have to go with an electric car you’re accepting the car is worse… What the Model S is about is breaking that illusion. It’s about showing that an electric car can be the best car in the world.”
― Elon Musk
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein
“I keep saying we need to produce products at the ‘Chindia’ price–the price at which people in India and China will buy it–without subsidies. You can’t subsidise energy on a large scale. It would bankrupt any government. Every government that did that would end up like Greece… When I have to do a technology project, I don’t do the next increment of technology. I don’t say I’ll make a solar cell that’s 10% better; I’ll take a huge risk and make something that’s 300% better. Your chances of failure go up because you’re taking a big jump. You cannot do that unless you are substantially increasing your risk of failure. Which is why I encourage failure. But, that’s what it takes to make these green technologies fundamentally, technically and economically viable. And make them mainstream technologies, not niche solutions. Everybody keeps going back to these niche solutions and they won’t take these large risks. Most of the big companies are not working on these Black Swan technologies because they are afraid to fail. Because some manager’s career gets hurt if he fails. This is why big companies never innovate. We are probably doing, in my little portfolio and with our five or six partners 10 times the amount of innovation that GE and Siemens are doing combined with all their resources. That’s a pretty stunning claim to make.”
— Vinod Khosla
“Where we can, we have to go to zero carbon, because of a growing population and a rising middle class in developing countries which wants the same standard of living the developed world already enjoys. GHGs must be cut by at least 50% around the world by 2050, with the rich, developed countries cutting by 80%, compared to 1990 levels. We are at the beginning of a technical revolution of the magnitude of the railway, the motor car … The economic crisis is an opportunity to lay the foundation for the future.”
― Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford
“Every particle of rock or water or air has God by its side leading it the way it should go; The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness; In God’s wildness is the hope of the world.”
― John Muir, founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and served as its first president, helped to pass the U.S. National Park Bill of 1899 that established both Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park, and was the author of seminal environmental writings
Note that the Invocation to Gaia by John Seed reflects much of the same perspective as John Muir.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
― Victor Hugo
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost
“All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity:
but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
― T. E. Lawrence
