Louv Quotes & Sayings

The Environmental Protection Agency now warns us that indoor air pollution is the nation's number one environmental threat to health- and it's from two to ten times worse than outdoor air pollution. A child indoors is more susceptible to spore of toxic molds growing under that plush carpet; or bacteria or allergens carried by household vermin; or carbon monoxide, radon and lead dust. The allergen level of newer, sealed buildings can be as much as two hundred times greater than that of older structures. — Richard Louv

Our kids are actually doing what we told them to do when they sit in front of that TV all day or in front of that computer game all day. The society is telling kids unconsciously that nature's in the past. It really doesn't count anymore, that the future is in electronics, and besides, the bogeyman is in the woods. — Richard Louv

Increasingly the evidence suggests that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy. — Richard Louv

The times I spent with my children in nature are among my most meaningful memories-and I hope theirs. — Richard Louv

The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable. — Richard Louv

Nature is often overlooked as a healing balm for the emotional hardships in a child's life. — Richard Louv

Nature introduces children to the idea - to the knowing - that they are not alone in this world, and that realities and dimensions exist alongside their own. — Richard Louv

Nature is beautiful, but not always pretty. — Richard Louv

Unlike television, reading does not swallow the senses or dictate thought. Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination. Can you remember the wonder you felt when first reading The Jungle Book or Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn? Kipling's world within a world; Twain's slow river, the feel of freedom and sand on the secret island, and in the depths of the cave? — Richard Louv

Quality of life isn't measured only by what we gain, but also by what we trade for it. — Richard Louv

Now, more than ever, we need nature as a balancing agent. — Richard Louv

The logical extension of synthetic nature is the irrelevance of "true" nature
the certainty that it's not even worth looking at. (62) — Richard Louv

If you can't live in the land you love, love the land you're in. — Richard Louv

Though we often see ourselves as separate from nature, humans are also part of that wildness. — Richard Louv

One of the main benefits of spending time in nature is stress reduction. — Richard Louv

Faced with a totally controlled, monitored and owned online world, in which every utterance is immediately scanned and filed away, many have yet to make the connection that the best solution may not be running Tor and eighteen proxies, but writing things down on paper and talking face-to-face. Remember the mail? Remember conversations? Yeah, those still exist. Want to shake somebody out of their online trance? Send them a letter. Send them art. Want to record something that will last longer than a few seconds on Facebook or Twitter? Write a book. The physical world didn't go anywhere. In fact, physical artifacts and experiences have only grown in totemic power the more we've pushed them away. — Jason Louv

We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy. — Richard Louv

The more we know, superficially, the less we penetrate, vertically. — Richard Louv

There is a real world, beyond the glass, for children who look, for those whose parents encourage them to truly see. — Richard Louv

I do not mean to imply that the good old days were perfect. But the institutions and structure
the web
of society needed reform,not demolition. To have cut the institutional and community strands without replacing them with new ones proved to be a form of abuse to one generation and to the next. For so many Americans, the tragedy was not in dreaming that life could be better; the tragedy was that the dreaming ended. — Richard Louv

If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults. — Richard Louv

My contention throughout this book is that reconnecting to nature is one key to growing a larger environmental movement. That reconnection is visceral and immediately useful to many people's lives. Encouraging personal reconnection does not mean less engagement with global environmental issues; it means more. To act, most of us need motivation beyond despair. — Richard Louv

This seems clear enough: When truly present in nature, we do use all our senses at the same time, which is the optimum state of learning. — Richard Louv

If the Protestant Reformation sought to remove the Catholic Church as an mediator between the individual and God, Hermetic magic sought to go one further, and provide techniques to directly plug an individual into the mind of God itself, not just handing over the right of individual interpretation of scripture but a direct connection to the source of scripture. — Jason Louv

We are weighted with the outmoded dreams of dead men and dead systems, walking-corpse institutions and undead, blood-sucking ideologies long past their expiration date which yet haunt the planet, entrapping the joy of the living within the dead ribcage walls of their rotting, false order, and which direly need a stake through the heart simply because they are no longer relevant. — Jason Louv

The physical exercise and emotional stretching that children enjoy in unorganized play is more varied and less time-bound than is found in organized sports. Playtime - especially unstructured, imaginative, exploratory play - is increasingly recognized as an essential component of wholesome child development. — Richard Louv

While outdoor activities in general help, settings with trees and grass are the most beneficial. — Richard Louv

A natural environment is far more complex than any playing field. — Richard Louv

Use all of your senses. — Richard Louv

An indoor (or backseat) childhood does reduce some dangers to children; but other risks are heightened, including risks to physical and psychological health, risk to children's concept and perception of community, risk to self-confidence and the ability to discern true danger — Richard Louv

What happens when all the parts of childhood are soldered down, when the young no longer have the time or space to play in their family's garden, cycle home in the dark with the stars and moon illuminating their route, walk down through the woods to the river, lie on their backs on hot July days in the long grass, or watch cockleburs, lit by morning sun, like bumblees quivering on harp wires? What then? — Richard Louv

American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents ... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce. — Richard Louv

Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. — Richard Louv

Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. — Richard Louv

Studies of children in playgrounds with both green areas and manufactured play areas found that children engaged in more creative forms of play in the green areas. — Richard Louv

Thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies. — Richard Louv

Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life-these are the rewards that await a family then it invites more nature into children's lives. — Richard Louv

Why do so many Americans say they want their children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the opportunities for them to watch it? More important, why do so many people no longer consider the physical world worth watching? The highway's edges may not be postcard perfect. But for a century, children's early understanding of how cities and nature fit together was gained from the backseat: the empty farmhouse at the edge of the subdivision; the variety of architecture, here and there; the woods and fields and water beyond the seamy edges
all that was and still is available to the eye. This was the landscape that we watched as children. It was our drive-by movie. — Richard Louv

We tend to block off many of our senses when we're staring at a screen. Nature time can literally bring us to our senses. — Richard Louv

As we grow more separate from nature, we continue to separate from one another physically. — Richard Louv

From 1997 to 2003, there was a decline of 50 percent in the proportion of children nine to twelve who spent time in such outside activities as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play, and gardening, according to a study by Sandra Hofferth at the University of Maryland. — Richard Louv

An environment-based education movement
at all levels of education
will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world. — Richard Louv

In the meantime, relax. Take a break. Look at the clouds. Listen to the wind. Let the birds do the heavy lifting. A — Richard Louv

Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illness. This disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities. — Richard Louv

For a new generation, nature is more abstraction than reality. — Richard Louv

Another British study discovered that average eight-year-olds were better able to identify characters from the Japanese card trading game Pokemon than native species in the community where they lived: Pikachu, Metapod, and Wigglytuff were names more familiar to them than otter, beetle, and oak tree. — Richard Louv

In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a 'dangerous form of spiritual alienation'
a devaluing of the world and its creator. — Richard Louv

Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. — Richard Louv

Quite simply, when we deny our children nature, we deny them beauty. — Richard Louv

And old Indian saying: 'It's better to know one mountain than to climb many. — Richard Louv

Spare time in the garden, either digging, setting out, or weeding; there is no better way to preserve your health. — Richard Louv

I do not trust technology. I mean, I don't think we're in any danger of kids, you know, doing without video games in the future, but I am saying that their lives are largely out of balance. — Richard Louv

Some kids don't want to be organized all the time. They want to let their imaginations run; they want to see where a stream of water takes them. — Richard Louv

This tree house became our galleon, our spaceship, our Fort Apache ... Ours was a learning tree. Through it we learned to trust ourselves and our abilities. — Richard Louv

Mothers tend to be more direct. Fathers talk to other fathers about their kids more metaphorically. It's a different way of communication. — Richard Louv

For the young, food is from Venus; farming is from Mars — Richard Louv

Ask yourself where you're complicit in other people's stories. If you like them, stay in those stories. If you don't, don't. You're not bound to any of it, though remember that if you want to get rid of the bad aspects of something you'll probably have to lose the good aspects, too. — Jason Louv

Sir Walter Raleigh once remarked, "the art of magic is the art of worshipping God. — Jason Louv

Nature is one of the best antidotes to fear. — Richard Louv

There's no denying the benefits of the Internet. But electronic immersion, without a force to balance it, creates the hole in the boat - draining our ability to pay attention, to think clearly, to be productive and creative. — Richard Louv

There is another possibility: not the end of nature, but the rebirth of wonder and even joy. — Richard Louv

Being close to nature, in general, helps boost a child's attention span. — Richard Louv

By letting our children lead us to their own special places we can rediscover the joy and wonder of nature. — Richard Louv

Paradoxically, the occult can often become the concern, in different modes, of both the least intelligent and also the most aberrantly intelligent human beings, with those soundly in the middle of the bell curve often unable to tell the difference between genuine intellectual exploration of the universe's unfathomable and mysterious structure and pre-literate superstition. — Jason Louv

For the Hermeticist, the universe is a holographic unity, and understanding any aspect of it can aid in understanding all other aspects. — Jason Louv

It was frightening and wonderful to surrender to the wind's power. — Richard Louv

Most scientists who study human perception no longer assume that we have five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. The current number ranges from a conservative ten senses to as many as thirty, including blood-sugar levels, empty stomach, thirst, joint position, and more. The list is growing. — Richard Louv

In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children. — Richard Louv

The future will belong to the nature-smart-those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need. — Richard Louv

By bringing nature into our lives, we invite humility. — Richard Louv

As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world. We can find immeasurable joy in the birth of a child, a great work of art, or falling in love. — Richard Louv

To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen. — Richard Louv

Something else was different when we were young: our parents were outdoors. I'm not saying they were joining health clubs and things of that sort, but they were out of the house, out on the porch, talking to neighbors. As far as physical fitness goes, today's kids are the sorriest generation in the history of the United States. Their parents may be out jogging, but the kids just aren't outside. — Richard Louv

We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past
the portrayals of family life on such television programs as "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" and all the rest. — Richard Louv

Nature can help people recover from "normal psychological wear and tear" - — Richard Louv

Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its preservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing? — Richard Louv

You can solve any large or complex problem by breaking it down into smaller, simpler problems. — Richard Louv

As the young spend less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically and this reduces the richness of human experience we need contact with nature. — Richard Louv

Whether or not Enochian represents a valid system for causing "magical" change in consciousness, there is no question that Enochian is at the very heart of the 20th century occult and neopagan revival - Dee and Kelley's work is still detonating long past their deaths. It is possible, in fact, that we completely lack the ability to gauge their otherworldly work as a success or failure - as it seems to be unfolding on a millennial timespan, "outside the circles of time. — Jason Louv

In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace. — Richard Louv

What if a tree fell in the forest and no one knew it's biological name? Did it exist? — Richard Louv

No other youth group like the Scouts has trained so many future leaders while at the same time being a nature organization with its outdoor focus. — Richard Louv

Isolated patches of wild land are valuable to know, as are isolated people. — Richard Louv

A lot of people think they need to give up nature to become adults but that's not true. However, you have to be careful how you describe and define 'nature.' — Richard Louv

I played around our yard some and talked to the fence posts, sung songs and made the weeds sing ... - WOODY GUTHRIE — Richard Louv

What if more and more parents, grandparents and kids around the country band together to create outdoor adventure clubs, family nature networks, family outdoor clubs, or green gyms? What if this approach becomes the norm in every community? — Richard Louv

When we raise our children, we relive our childhood. Forgotten memories, painful and pleasurable, rise to the surface ... So each of us thinks, almost daily, of how our own childhood compares with our children's, and of what our children's future will hold. — Richard Louv

The world of "magick" is, nine times out of ten, a world where people can hide their deep-set insecurity and personal damage behind illusion, constructed identities and claims to privileged knowledge, power or spiritual status. A gaudy carnival magic show, conducted with props that have long since begun to disintegrate with age, that seems to function only to distract people from the real magic that is occurring all around them, in every facet of their lives, every day of their lives. While the rituals and magical techniques of the Temple seem overly simplistic in comparison with the loftier Qabalahs, tables of correspondences and secret formulae of "high" magick, they have one thing which high magick quite often forgets: a concrete function. — Jason Louv

Most people are either awakened to or are strengthened in their spiritual journey by experiences in the natural world. — Richard Louv

Parents are told to turn off the TV and restrict video game time, but we hear little about what the kids should do physically during their non-electronic time. The usual suggestion is organized sports. But consider this: The obesity epidemic coincides with the greatest increase in organized children's sports in history. — Richard Louv

We are telling our kids that nature is in the past and it probably doesn't count anymore, the future is in electronics, the boogeyman is in the woods, and playing outdoors is probably illicit and possibly illegal. — Richard Louv

You probably learned from your failures more than from success. — Richard Louv

These days, unplugged places are getting hard to find. — Richard Louv

Freud regarded childhood as a time in which our lowest, most animalistic impulses are strongest. — Richard Louv

We do not raise our children alone ... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone. — Richard Louv

Until recently, most environmental organizations offered only token attention to children. Perhaps their lack of zeal stems from an unconscious ambivalence about children, who symbolize or represent overpopulation. So goes the unspoken mantra: We have met the enemy and it is our progeny. — Richard Louv

Nature was still out there. There was less of it, to be sure, but it was there just the same. — Richard Louv

Here is the beginning of understanding: most parents are doing their best, and most children are doing their best, and they're doing pretty well, all things considered. — Richard Louv

Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination. — Richard Louv

If no one ever tried anything, even what some folks say is impossible, no one would ever learn anything. So you just keep on trying and maybe some day you'll try something that will work. — Richard Louv