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Quotes by Wangari Maathai

African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.
– Wangari Maathai
All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.
– Wangari Maathai
I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
– Wangari Maathai
It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.
– Wangari Maathai
Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys from time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.
– Wangari Maathai
The privilege of a higher education, especially outside Africa, broadened my original horizon and encouraged me to focus on the environment, women and development in order to improve the quality of life of people in my country in particular and in the African region in general.
– Wangari Maathai
We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.
– Wangari Maathai
Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious.
– Wangari Maathai
Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.
– Wangari Maathai
You cannot blame the mismanagement of the economy or the fact that we have not invested adequately in education in order to give our people the knowledge, the skills and the technology that they need in order to be able to use the resources that Africa has to gain wealth.
– Wangari Maathai
When resources are degraded, we start competing for them, whether it is at the local level in Kenya, where we had tribal clashes over land and water, or at the global level, where we are fighting over water, oil, and minerals. So one way to promote peace is to promote sustainable management and equitable distribution of resources.
– Wangari Maathai
It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.
– Wangari Maathai
It would be good for us Africans to accept ourselves as we are and recapture some of the positive aspects of our culture.
– Wangari Maathai
It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
– Wangari Maathai
In Kenya women are the first victims of environmental degradation, because they are the ones who walk for hours looking for water, who fetch firewood, who provide food for their families.
– Wangari Maathai
In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.
– Wangari Maathai
I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.
– Wangari Maathai
I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me.
– Wangari Maathai