Marjory Stoneman Douglas

The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass.

There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them.

They are unique in the simplicity, the diversity, the related harmony of the forms of life that they enclose.

No one is satisfied with their life's work.

Since 1972, I've been going around making speeches on the Everglades.

It's a little bit late in the day for men to object that women are getting outside their proper sphere.

No matter how poor my eyes are I can still talk.

The wealth of south Florida, but even more important, the meaning and significance of south Florida lies in the black muck of the Everglades and the inevitable development of this country to be the great tropic agricultural center of the world.

I take advantage of every thing I can - age, hair, disability - because my cause is just.

I'll talk about the Everglades at the drop of a hat.

I'm just a tough old woman.

To be a friend of the Everglades is not necessarily to spend time wandering around out there.

I feel greatly at fault in not having made a loud public protest about Belle Glade before this.

I wanted to go to a good college, and my mind was set on Wellesley.

You have to stand up for some things in this world.

There is always the need to carry on.

Conservation is now a dead word.

Child welfare ought really to cover all sorts of topics, such as better water and sanitation and good roads, and clean streets and public parks and playgrounds.

The problem of the environment is the extension of good housekeeping of the thinking woman.

All we need, really, is a change from a near frigid to a tropical attitude of mind.

Sometimes, I tell them more than they wanted to know.

You can't conserve what you haven't got.

Whoever wants me to talk, I'll come over and tell them about the necessity of preserving the Everglades.