Even with the effects of thousands of years of sin, the earth is filled with much that delights the senses. And while nature’s bounty and beauty seem boundless, humanity’s carelessness for life is reflected not only in scenes of overuse and exploitation, but in the way some are marginalized and oppressed. As stewards of God’s creation, we have a responsibility to serve as protectors and preservers of life in all its forms.—Editors.

“God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

Genesis 1:31

“Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

Muhammad Ali

“Nature is the art of God.”

Dante Alighieri

“The ache for home lives in all of us.”

Maya Angelou

“Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness of people.”

Roy T. Bennett

“I count myself lucky, having long ago won a lottery paid to me in seven sunrises every week for life.”

Robert Brault

“The love of one’s own country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”

Pablo Casals

“If we don’t stand up for children, then we don’t stand for much.”

Marian Wright Edelman

“As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”

Anne Frank

“When the well’s dry we know the worth of water.”

Benjamin Franklin

“The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“Nothing in nature lives for itself. Rivers don’t drink their own water. Trees don’t eat their own fruit. Sun doesn’t give heat for itself. Flowers don’t spread fragrance for themselves. Living for others is the rule of nature.”

Amit Gupta

“Our society as a whole, because we have placed our love for money above our love for life, has devalued the sacred and devalued love.”

Julia Butterfly Hill

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Jesus Christ (John 10:10)

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

Alphonse Karr

“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”

John Lewis

“I would rather be a little nobody, than to be an evil somebody.”

Abraham Lincoln

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, because love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Nelson Mandela

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

Terry Pratchett

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”

Theodore Roosevelt

“Our life . . . finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

William Shakespeare

“Seek out a tree and let it teach you stillness.”

Eckhart Tolle

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Elie Wiesel

“God has not caused the flowers of the fields to grow in regular beds, with set borders, but He has scattered them like gems over the greensward, and they beautify the earth with their variety of form and color.”

Ellen G. White (the Adventist Home, pp. 153, 154)