Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai
Wangari Muta Maathaiwas a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholasticaand the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya...
NationalityKenyan
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth1 April 1940
CityNyeri, Kenya
CountryKenya
admiring call knees looking mother trying until wonder
I would be on my knees looking at them and admiring them, trying to have them on my neck, until my mother would call and wonder what ... I was doing in the river.
environment future invest people protection train
If you want the future generations to live in peace, we must invest in the protection of the environment and we must train especially our young people so that they don't think, for example, the whole world is like Japan.
environment few fight resources
When you have the environment degraded, it is always so that we are going to fight over the few resources that are left.
mind knows values
You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself. That values itself. That understands itself.
leadership giving humanity
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.
tree climate plant
When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.
fate voice earth-day
All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. It must be this voice that is telling me to do something, and I am sure it's the same voice that is speaking to everybody on this planet - at least everybody who seems to be concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of this planet.
knocked-down persons has-beens
Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
differences tree littles
It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.
teamwork running risk
I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it.
opportunity moments difficult
There are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.
ambition home limits
When I went back home, I was constantly being reminded, I'm an African woman, and so there are certain things I shouldn't do, certain ambitions that I should not entertain. That was a problem for me because I had never thought of myself as an African woman, never thought of myself as a woman to begin with. For me the limit was my capacity, my capability.
happiness inspiring success
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.
biblical expression free-your-mind
You have to know yourself, and that once you know yourself, then you cannot be bound by - because sometimes we are bound by other people's thoughts, because we are not sure about ourselves. But once you know yourself... I guess it is really an expression of the biblical statements that the truth will make you free! When you know, then you are free, your mind is free.