168 Quotes by Richard Louv

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.

Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.

What if a tree fell in the forest and no one knew it's biological name? Did it exist?

In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a 'dangerous form of spiritual alienation' -- a devaluing of the world and its creator.

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.

The real cultural war is between the culture of narcissism and what might be called the culture of renewal.

Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its preservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing?

When we raise our children, we relive our childhood. Forgotten memories, painful and pleasurable, rise to the surface.... So each of us thinks, almost daily, of how our own childhood compares with our children's, and of what our children's future will hold.

The physical exercise and emotional stretching that children enjoy in unorganized play is more varied and less time-bound than is found in organized sports. Playtime—especially unstructured, imaginative, exploratory play—is increasingly recognized as an essential component of wholesome child development.