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When people can't use you, they ridicule what you represent. I was lucky that I understood that, because when one does not understand that, it is very easy to be broken and to be subdued.
Wangari Maathai
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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
Doe
Ridicule
People
Represent
Understood
Lucky
Broken
Understand
Use
Easy
Subdued
More quotes by Wangari Maathai
There will always be people who think that you have ambitions.
Wangari Maathai
Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.
Wangari Maathai
It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.
Wangari Maathai
I knew that I was not doing anything wrong, and I knew in my mind I was doing the right thing. I knew that the people who were going against me were not going against me for a good purpose. I knew that they were trying to justify their corruption and misgovernance.
Wangari Maathai
When I first started, it was really an innocent response to the needs of women in rural areas. When we started planting trees to meet their needs, there was nothing beyond that. I did not see all the issues that I have to come to deal with.
Wangari Maathai
It is wonderful when you don't have the fear, and a lot of the time I don't ... I focus on what needs to be done instead.
Wangari Maathai
What people see as fearlessness is really persistence. Because I am focused on the solution, I don't see the danger.
Wangari Maathai
What is really important is to educate people how to protect themselves and how to ensure that, despite their poverty, they can get tested and access drugs. So I just hope that those who can will make those drugs available.
Wangari Maathai
I'm sure that many people who are involved in an environmental effort ... they will be pretty much encouraged by this recognition.
Wangari Maathai
Tradition sometimes excludes the girl child from inheriting or single women may not want to be perceived as pursuing too much property. The law has come a long way in favor of the woman, but it is the tradition, the attitudes, that we often have to fight.
Wangari Maathai
When resources are degraded, we start competing for them, whether it is at the local level in Kenya, where we had tribal clashes over land and water, or at the global level, where we are fighting over water, oil, and minerals. So one way to promote peace is to promote sustainable management and equitable distribution of resources.
Wangari Maathai
I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.
Wangari Maathai
For example, they have land. The government of Qatar wants to lease the Tana River delta, which is in Kenya, from the Kenyan government, so that they can produce food there. People in Kenya need food. We have people who have studied agriculture. Why is it that if we really need food, we cannot go into the delta and develop our own food?
Wangari Maathai
Obviously the world is moving away from high carbon energy to low carbon energy, and eventually moving away toward renewable energy. So it is in the interest of Africa to move towards that, because that's where the world is moving.
Wangari Maathai
Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.
Wangari Maathai
You can educate people on how to preempt their own conflict.
Wangari Maathai
We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!
Wangari Maathai
Once people see that you improve you life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.
Wangari Maathai
People are dynamic. They change, and soon as there are enough of you, things change [for a whole society].
Wangari Maathai
All through the ages the African people have made efforts to deliver themselves from oppressive forces.
Wangari Maathai
