Stewart Udall

“Each generation has its own rendezvous with the land, for despite our fee titles and claims of ownership, we are all brief tenants on this planet. By choice, or by default, we will carve out a land legacy for our heirs.”

“One of the best things that came out of the Carter administration was the energy policy. The best things in it were renewable energy.”

“Nixon was a good president on the environment. Gerald Ford was good.”

“We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.”

“In a region with a growing population, if you're doing nothing, you're losing ground.”

“Wilderness, like the national park system, was an American idea.”

“Federal judges are just very reluctant to stick the government with responsibility.”

“Nature will take precedence over the needs of the modern man.”

“Lady Bird Johnson did more than plant flowers in public places. She served the country superbly by planting environmental values in the minds of the nation's leaders and citizens.”

“The environmental effects of the automobile are well known: motor vehicles cause, for example, as much as 75 percent of the noise and 80 percent of the air pollution in our cities, and the industry must face mounting pressure from environmentalists.”

“So many people of my generation who served in the government were prisoners of the Cold War culture, still are.”

“The choice facing the American people is not between growth and stagnation, but between short-term growth and long-term disaster.”

“The auto industry must acknowledge that a rational transportation policy should seek a balance between individual convenience, the efficient use of limited resources, and urban-living values that protect spaciousness, natural beauty, and human-scale mobility.”

“I am not proposing that we bring our oil and auto industries to a screeching halt. There is still time to begin a series of gradual steps toward new transportation and energy policies, livable cities, and more humane, efficient transit systems.”

“Over the long haul of life on this planet, it is the ecologists, and not the bookkeepers of business, who are the ultimate accountants.”

“Mining is like a search-and-destroy mission.”

“The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the life-giving earth, and the Native American shared this elemental ethic: The land was alive to his loving touch, and he, its son, was brother to all creatures.”

“Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.”

“It gives me satisfaction to help people.”

“Utah today remains a battleground for land-use policies.”