146 Quotes by Paul Hawken

We assume that everything’s becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that’s true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

We are losing our living systems, social systems, cultural systems, governing systems, stability, and our constitutional health, and we’re surrendering it all at the same time.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.

We have an economy that tells us it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet.

I’d rather fail at something important than succeed at something trivial.

Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy.

Don’t go to business school.

We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital – the resource systems upon which we depend to live – instead of our human capital.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Civilization needs a new operating system.