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FUNNY ENVIRONMENTAL QUOTES
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To find funny environmental quotes by category, use the subject index.
Or just start scrolling down.
This page has funny environmental quotes from kidders like Sandra Boynton, Gelett Burgess, Steven Wright, David Letterman—and many more. (In some cases, we've stretched a bit past the bounds of strictly environmental topics, but the idea was to find funny quotes related to the condition of the planet and of humanity.) If you want some not-so-funny green quotes, see our page of serious environmental quotes.
We'll keep adding to our funny environmental quotes list over time. If you know of a good humorous environmental quote that I missed, you can email it to us.
Also, each new issue of Grinning Planet includes one or more funny quotes on general topics. You can get it by email for free.
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"There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist."
— Mark Twain
"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it."
— P.J. O'Rourke
"If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, how will the Environmentalists react?"
— Anonymous
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
— Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax
"If you're not a tree hugger, then you're a what, a tree hater?"
— Doug Coupland
"A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, 'To Hell, for that's where help is needed most.'"
— Roshi Philip Kapleau
"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."
— Steven Wright
"I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am."
— Monty Python
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"Why don't we pay more attention to who our farmers are? We would never be as careless choosing an auto mechanic or babysitter as we are about who grows our food."
— Michael Pollan,
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Little ol' boy in the [Texas] Panhandle told me the other day you can still make a small fortune in agriculture. Problem is, you got to start with a large one."
— Jim Hightower
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"Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees."
— David Letterman
"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"
— Lee Iacocca, CEO/Chairman, Chrysler Corporation, 1979-1992
"There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all."
— Robert Orben
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The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
Supplies us sausage, ham, and Bacon.
Let others say his heart is big,
I think it stupid of the Pig.
— Ogden Nash, "The Pig"
"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants."
— A. Whitney Brown
"It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians."
— Henrik Ibsen
"Never wear anything that panics the cat."
— P.J. O'Rourke
"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"
— George Carlin
"God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages."
— Jacques Deval
"Stuffed deer heads on walls are bad enough, but it's worse when they are wearing dark glasses and have streamers in their antlers because then you know they were enjoying themselves at a party when they were shot."
— Ellen DeGeneres
"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal.... I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her."
— Ellen DeGeneres
"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs."
— Unknown
Lisa: "Do we have any food that wasn't brutally slaughtered?"
Homer: "Well, I think the veal died of loneliness."
— Matt Groening, The Simpsons
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"Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, nature immediately comes up with a better mouse."
— James Carswell
"Wolves are very resourceful. All they need to survive is for people not to shoot them."
— Bob Ferris
I never saw a purple cow;
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.
— Gelett Burgess
"Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature."
— Marilyn Monroe
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"'Growth' and 'progress' are among the key words in our national vocabulary. But modern man now carries Strontium 90 in his bones ... DDT in his fat, asbestos in his lungs. A little more of this 'progress' and 'growth,' and this man will be dead."
— Morris K. "Mo" Udall
"You've got a chemistry class; I want a piece of your mind;
You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine..."
— Elvis Costello, from "Chemistry Class"
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
— Dave Barry
— See more ... Funny Quotes about Chemicals & Toxics
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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
— John Maynard Keynes
"The trouble in corporate America is that too many people with too much power live in a box (their home), then travel the same road every day to another box (their office)."
— Faith Popcorn, "The Popcorn Report" [1991]
"Romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece."
— Lisa Simpson, from The Simpsons
"A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good, and a real one."
— J.P. Morgan
"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything."
— Greg Easterbrook, in The New Republic
"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."
— Steven Wright
"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper that it's written on."
— Samuel Goldwyn
"Sharks have been swimming the oceans unchallenged for thousands of years; chances are, the species that roams corporate waters will prove just as hardy."
— Eric Gelman
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"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
— Kenneth Boulding
"...By allowing businesses to expense up to $75,000, it means somebody is more likely to buy a copying machine, or in this case, an architectural... fancy machine."
— President George W. Bush
[In a speech promoting his economic stimulus plan, 2003]
"Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks."
— Steven Wright
"That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in."
— Whoopi Goldberg
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"I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book."
— Groucho Marx
"When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction."
— Steven Wright
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"When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer."
— Dave Barry, post-petroleum guzzler
"When President Chirac gave [President] Bush a souvenir statue of the Eiffel Tower... Bush said 'This is great! A little oil rig!' "
— Jay Leno
"If it weren't for electricity, we'd all be watching television by candlelight."
— George Gobel
"It doesn't make a difference what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature."
— Steven Wright
"The Senate is now considering increasing government subsidies for corn growers to produce more ethanol. If we produce enough ethanol we can postpone our next invasion of a Middle Eastern country for two to three years."
— Jay Leno
"The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun."
— Ralph Nader
Highlights from the "Top Ten Ways Dumb Guys Would Lower Gas Prices"
- Sell gas by the half-gallon.
- Build time machine, drive back to 1965 when gas was cheap.
- Step one: Oprah buys all the gas. Step two: Oprah gives the gas away.
— David Letterman, Late Show
"Well, the common enemy in North America is the Western consumer. The consumer has driven oil up to $50 a barrel so we have to have these wars. I think it's incumbent upon us to."
— Dan Aykroyd
"As we head to war with Iraq, President Bush wants to make one thing clear: This war is not about oil. It's about gasoline."
— Jay Leno
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"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."
— Steven Wright
"Having arrived at the edge of the river, the fisherman soon realized he had forgotten to bring any bait. Just then he happened to see a little snake passing by who had caught a worm. The fisherman snatched up the snake and robbed him of his worm. Feeling sorry for the little snake with no lunch, he snatched him up again and poured a little beer down his throat. Then he went about his fishing. An hour or so later the fisherman felt a tug at his pant leg. Looking down, he saw the same snake with three more worms in his mouth..."
— From "A Joke A Day"
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"Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it some kind of bonus?"
— Neil Gaiman
"As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate."
— Sandra Boynton
"It's easy to identify people who can't count to ten. They're in front of you in the supermarket express lane."
— June Henderson
"My body is a temple where junk food goes to worship."
— Anonymous
"I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Some one needs to tell the turkey, 'man, just be yourself.'"
— Mitch Hedberg
"I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time."
— Steven Wright
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"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence."
— Hal Borland
"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them."
— Eeyore, from A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh
"If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life."
— Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
"I love little children too but I don't cut off their heads and stick them in vases."
— Geroge Bernard Shaw, on flowers
"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."
— James Dent
"The only two herbicides we recommend are cultivation and mulching."
— Organic Gardening Magazine
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"I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding."
— Steven Wright
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
— Woody Allen
"Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working."
— Anonymous
"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
— Douglas Adams
"Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile."
— Albert Schweitzer
"For 200 years we've been conquering nature. Now we're beating it to death."
— Tom McMillan
"Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?"
— Groucho Marx
Seen on a bumpersticker:
"Ignore the environment. It'll go away."
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"According to a survey in this week's Time magazine, 85% of Americans think global warming is happening. The other 15% work for the White House."
— Jay Leno
"The ice caps are melting, Leonard. In the future, swimming won't be optional."
— Sheldon, in The Big Bang Theory (TV Series)
"Some folks believe that global warming doesn't exist and that the environment doesn't need any help. I tend not to listen to them."
— Robert Wagner
"President Bush has a plan [to fight global warming]. He says that if we need to, we can lower the temperature dramatically just by switching from Fahrenheit to Celsius."
— Jimmy Kimmel
"The Union of Concerned Scientists says the Bush administration manipulates and suppresses science. The administration points out that the Union of Bought and Paid for Scientists disagrees."
— Fark.com
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"The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard."
— Steven Wright
"The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers."
— Lewis Thomas
"As for evolution, I have a hard time believing that billions of years ago two protozoa bumped into each other under a volcanic cesspool and evolved into Cindy Crawford."
— Robert G.Lee
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"I intend to live forever. So far, so good."
— Steven Wright
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"There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it."
— Erma Bombeck
"A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs."
— Robert Benchley
"Young people everywhere have been allowed to choose between love and a garbage disposal unit. Everywhere they have chosen the garbage disposal unit."
— Guy Debord
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"I am at two with Nature."
— Woody Allen
"I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is."
— Will Durst
"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!' "
— Robin Williams
"Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.' "
— Robert Byrne
"OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets."
— Ambrose Bierce, from The Devil's Dictionary
"Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong."
— George Carlin
"Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
— Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent
"The magnificence of mountains, the serenity of nature—nothing is safe from the idiot marks of man's passing."
— Bill Vaughan
"It's hard for the modern generation to understand Thoreau, who lived beside a pond but didn't own water skis or a snorkel."
— Loudon Wainwright
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"A two-pound turkey and a fifty-pound cranberry—that's Thanksgiving dinner at Three Mile Island."
— Johnny Carson
"Don't get me wrong: I love nuclear energy! It's just that I prefer fusion to fission. And it just so happens that there's an enormous fusion reactor safely banked a few million miles from us. It delivers more than we could ever use in just about 8 minutes. And it's wireless!"
— William McDonough, Fortune Brainstorm Conference, 2006
"We don't want to start a nuclear war unless we really have to, now do we Jack?"
— Group Capt. Mandrake to Col. Jack Ripper in the movie
Dr. Strangelove – or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say, no more than 10-20 million [US citizens] killed. Tops. Depending on the breaks."
— General Buck Turgidson (Peter Sellers) to Col. Jack Ripper, commenting on the prospects for a pre-emptive strike on the USSR, in
Dr. Strangelove – or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
"If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce."
— Winston Churchill
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
— Albert Einstein
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"Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen."
— Steven Wright
"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean."
— Arthur C. Clarke
"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... perhaps you've seen it."
— Steven Wright
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"Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?"
— Will Rogers
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."
— Mark Twain
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile."
— Hunter S. Thompson
"Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it."
— Brigid Brophy
"Television is a medium. It is neither rare nor well done."
— Bill Moyers
"Media, the plural of mediocrity."
— Jimmy Breslin
"He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument."
— Shakespeare, from Love's Labor's Lost
"I cannot say that I don't disagree with you."
— Groucho Marx
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society."
— Mark Twain
"Relativity applies to physics, not ethics."
— Albert Einstein
"Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century? I am afraid that it is."
— George Porter, British chemist
"Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too."
— Richard M. Nixon
"George Washington is the only president who didn't blame the previous administration for his troubles."
— Author unknown
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"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
— Dan Quayle, former US vice president
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
— Walt Kelly (from "Pogo")
"We have found the sources of hazardous waste and they are us."
— US EPA, from "Everybody's Problem: Hazardous Waste"
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"Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped."
— Sam Levinson
"USA Today has come out with a new survey—apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population."
— David Letterman
"The sum of intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing."
— Cole's axiom
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"Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours."
— Denis Hayes
"I know they are all environmentalists. I heard a lot of my speeches recycled."
— Jesse Jackson
"I think reincarnation is possible. Hopefully, we all get recycled."
— Christina Ricci
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"It's amazing how much a few pieces of plastic and paper will sell for if the purchasers are parents or grandparent..."
— Lawrence Kutner
"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?"
— Steven Wright
"There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic."
— Lily Tomlin
"I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included."
— Bernard Manning
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"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."
— Bill Vaughan
"The greenest house is the one that never gets built."
— Whit Faulconer, GreenBlue
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"If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend."
— Doug Larson
"I didn't get a toy train like the other kids. I got a toy subway instead. You couldn't see anything, but every now and then you'd hear this rumbling noise go by."
— Steven Wright
"Most cars on our roads have only one occupant, usually the driver."
— Carol Malia, BBC Anchorwoman
"Sometimes when I am driving I get so angry at inconsiderate drivers that I want to scream at them. But then I remember how insignificant that is, and I thank God that I have a car and my health and gas. That was phrased wrong—normally you wouldn't say, thank God I have gas."
— Ellen DeGeneres, My Point and I Do Have One
"Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time."
— Steven Wright
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"Man is a complex being; he makes the deserts bloom and lakes die."
— Gil Stern
"Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow."
— Arthur Stringer, author, The Silver Poppy
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If you know of a funny environmental quote that I missed, I'd love for you to email it to me. Provide the text of the quote and who said it; and, if you have it, a reference where we can verify the text and the spelling of the person's name (a web page address, Bartlett's, etc.). So... email the quote. Thanks!
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