Quote

What a friend we have in a tree, the tree is the symbol of hope, self improvement and what people can do for themselves.

Wangari Maathai

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Wangari Maathai
Age: 71 †
Born: 1940
Born: April 1
Died: 2011
Died: September 25
Biologist
Environmentalist
Political Activist
Politician
Teacher
Veterinarian
Wangari Maathaï
Maathai
Wangari Maathai
Tree
Peace
Hope
Self
People
Symbol
Symbols
Improvement
Friend

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

Image
It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.
Wangari Maathai
Image
You cannot blame the mismanagement of the economy or the fact that we have not invested adequately in education in order to give our people the knowledge, the skills and the technology that they need in order to be able to use the resources that Africa has to gain wealth
Wangari Maathai
Image
Once people see that you improve you life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.
Wangari Maathai
Image
As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service
Wangari Maathai
Image
It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari Maathai
Image
The issue of carbon is one area where we really need to work together and if people don't have the technology they need, that technology needs to be made available and affordable.
Wangari Maathai
Image
We do the right thing not to please people but because it's the only logically reasonable thing to do, as long as we are being honest with ourselves - even if we are the only ones.
Wangari Maathai
Image
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.
Wangari Maathai
Image
All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.
Wangari Maathai
Image
When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition.
Wangari Maathai
Image
That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree.
Wangari Maathai
Image
The American government has spent a lot of money trying to reclaim, for example, the Everglades, and to allow the natural vegetation at the coastal areas to be restored because that was part of the vegetation that actually protected the hinterlands.
Wangari Maathai
Image
No matter who or where we are, or what our capabilities, we are called to do the best we can.
Wangari Maathai
Image
Sometimes I feel frustration at the bureaucracy for not moving fast enough to deliver in the way that I would prefer. But that is probably because I have worked for many years in the civil society, which tends to move much faster than government.
Wangari Maathai
Image
I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it.
Wangari Maathai
Image
We have a responsibility to protect the rights of generations, of all species, that cannot speak for themselves today. The global challenge of climate change requires that we ask no less of our leaders, or ourselves.
Wangari Maathai
Image
Nobody in the world is completely dependent on another person, but we are all interdependent.
Wangari Maathai
Image
Why do we have to have people come from afar to come and grow food for us, or to grow food to sell to us? It is partly because we are almost becoming used to people doing things for us. Like somebody else is going to solve that problem for us. And that to me is very disempowering system.
Wangari Maathai
Image
We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.
Wangari Maathai
Image
When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.
Wangari Maathai