The savage, rocky shores of Christmas Island, 200 miles south of Java, in the Indian Ocean. It's November, the moon is in its third quarter, and the sun is just setting. In a few hours from now, on this very shore, a thousand million lives will be launched.

David Attenborough

Categorized in : Islands Moon Ocean

No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.

David Attenborough

dont-care protect care

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.

David Attenborough

earth-day nature beauty

The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.

David Attenborough

nature air water

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment

David Attenborough

population benefits survival

What humans do over the next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on the planet.

David Attenborough

next fate years

How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing.

David Attenborough

grandchildren eye looks

The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there's a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I've been lucky in my lifetime to see some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species

David Attenborough

future real responsibility

Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is either mad or an economist

David Attenborough

mad growth believe

The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.

David Attenborough

responsibility lying hands

The World is full of wonders, but they become more Wonderful, not less Wonderful when Science looks at them.

David Attenborough

wonder looks world

Bringing nature into the classroom can kindle a fascination and passion for the diversity of life on earth and can motivate a sense of responsibility to safeguard it.

David Attenborough

passion nature responsibility

An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment...

David Attenborough

earth-day understanding nature

The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

David Attenborough

motivational inspirational book

I'm not over-fond of animals. I am merely astounded by them.

David Attenborough

astounded animal

We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours.

David Attenborough

cherish environment choices

I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, 'Why don't you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?' And I always say, well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate.

David Attenborough

butterfly atheist believe

People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.

David Attenborough

important beautiful people

Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also-if theyre lucky enough and have reasonable privileges of any human being-are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant.

David Attenborough

reading book children

I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.

David Attenborough

half wish travel

If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off.

David Attenborough

better-off humans world