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We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy.

Richard Louv

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Richard Louv
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Author
Journalist
Writer
Lightly
Expand
Capacity
Joy
Energy
Culture
Nature
Conserve
Earth
Tread

More quotes by Richard Louv

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The times I spent with my children in nature are among my most meaningful memories-and I hope theirs.
Richard Louv
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If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults.
Richard Louv
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If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.
Richard Louv
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What if more and more parents, grandparents and kids around the country band together to create outdoor adventure clubs, family nature networks, family outdoor clubs, or green gyms? What if this approach becomes the norm in every community?
Richard Louv
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When you're sitting in front of a screen, you're not using all of your senses at the same time. Nowhere than in nature do kids use their senses in such a stimulated way.
Richard Louv
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As the young spend less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically and this reduces the richness of human experience we need contact with nature.
Richard Louv
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A lot of people think they need to give up nature to become adults but that's not true. However, you have to be careful how you describe and define 'nature.
Richard Louv
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We do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone.
Richard Louv
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What if a tree fell in the forest and no one knew it's biological name? Did it exist?
Richard Louv
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As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world. We can find immeasurable joy in the birth of a child, a great work of art, or falling in love.
Richard Louv
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Now, my tree-climbing days long behind me, I often think about the lasting value of those early, deliciously idle days. I have come to appreciate the long view afforded by those treetops. The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.
Richard Louv
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If war occurs, that positive adult contact in every shape is needed more than ever. It will be a matter of emotional life and death. There's not a handy one-minute way of talking to your kid about war.
Richard Louv
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There’s no denying the benefits of the Internet. But electronic immersion, without a force to balance it, creates the hole in the boat — draining our ability to pay attention, to think clearly, to be productive and creative.
Richard Louv
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As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.
Richard Louv
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We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children's memories, the adventures we've had together in nature will always exist.
Richard Louv
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American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents.... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce.
Richard Louv
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There's a generation now that didn't grow up in nature. Some of these adults are parents and they know that nature is good for their kids but they don't know where to start.
Richard Louv
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Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they're gone, with rare exceptions they're gone forever. In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.
Richard Louv
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All spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and nature is a window into that wonder.
Richard Louv
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Nature introduces children to the idea—to the knowing—that they are not alone in this world, and that realities and dimensions exist alongside their own.
Richard Louv