The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.

I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.

We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt.

Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.

People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

In Buddhism, we talk of meditation as an act of awakening, to be awake to the fact that the earth is in danger and living species are in danger.

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

We think too much and feel too little.

Long before the awakening of thought on earth, manifestations of cosmic energy must have been produced which have no parallel today.

To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually.

I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.

Contention existed before the earth was formed.

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.

Every once in a while, I get mad. ‚The Lorax‘ came out of my being angry. The ecology books I’d read were dull… In ‚The Lorax,‘ I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might.

The more you live in the present moment, the more the fear of death disappears.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

We have to rethink our whole energy approach, which is hard to do because we’re so dependent on oil, not just for fuel but also plastic. If plastic vanished, there would be total chaos. We have to think quite carefully about using oil and its derivatives, because it’s not going to be around forever.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

I think that once you fully understand the climate and ecological emergencies, then you know what you can do as well. And, of course, there’s a lot of things you can do in your everyday life, but we cannot be focusing on these individual things you can do. We have to see the full picture.

If I forget to pray, I can’t get through the day without snapping at people.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

We have one planet in our solar system that’s habitable, and that’s the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

If anyone has a vested interest in space solar power, it would have to be me.

A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

The environmentalists say capitalism is killing our oceans, air, land, and forests. Capitalists argue that they provide food, fuel, and building materials for a growing world.

We must get rid of fossil fuels by developing injection systems for automobiles, which can run on bio-fuel.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

I never make conscious decisions.

Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

There are thousands of ways to take action. For example, plant trees, pick up litter, join an organisation or movement that makes a difference and especially try to influence adults and put pressure on people in power.

I remember when I was younger, and in school, our teachers showed us films of plastic in the ocean, starving polar bears and so on. I cried through all the movies. My classmates were concerned when they watched the film, but when it stopped, they started thinking about other things. I couldn’t do that. Those pictures were stuck in my head.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

The true cost to the world of a burger is far greater than the money you hand over to buy it.

Today, we’re very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted – all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.

I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe. I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Gardening is not a rational act.