Paul Watson Quotes

If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights.

The shark is the apex predator in the sea. Sharks have molded evolution for 450 million years. All fish species that are prey to the sharks have had their behavior, their speed, their camouflage, their defense mechanisms molded by the shark.

As for myself, I do not believe in loggers, I believe in trees. I do not believe in fishermen, I believe in fish. I do not believe in miners, I believe in the rocks beneath my feet. I do not believe in pie in the sky spirituality, I believe in rainbows, rivers, mountains, and moss. I do not believe in environmentalists, I believe in the environment. I am a proud traitor to my species in alliance with my mother the Earth in opposition to those who would destroy her, those parasites who believe the Earth is here to serve human interests.

In the great scheme of things, what matters is not how long you live but why you live, what you stand for and what you are willing to die for.

We buy a bottle of water in the city, where clean water comes out in its taps. You know, back in 1965, if someone said to the average person, You know in thirty years you are going to buy water in plastic bottles and pay more for that water than for gasoline? Everybody would look at you like youre completely out of your mind.

It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.

WE CAN NOT LIVE ON THIS PLANET WITH DEAD OCEANS. IF OUR OCEANS DIE, WE DIE.

Intelligence is the ability of a species to live in harmony with its environment.

We're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend," and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.

A vegan riding a hummer contributes less to greenhouse gas emissions than a meat eater riding a bicycle.

Seafood is simply a socially acceptable form of bush meat. We condemn Africans for hunting monkeys and mammalian and bird species from the jungle yet the developed world thinks nothing of hauling in magnificent wild creatures like swordfish, tuna, halibut, shark, and salmon for our meals. The fact is that the global slaughter of marine wildlife is simply the largest massacre of wildlife on the planet.

We should never feel like we're going too far in breaking the law, because whatever laws you break to liberate animals or to protect the environment are very insignificant compared to the laws that are broken by that parliament of whores in Washington. They are the biggest lawbreakers, the biggest destroyers, the biggest mass-murderers on this planet right now.

Unless we stop the degradation of our oceans, marine ecological systems will begin collapsing and when enough of them fail, the oceans will die. And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die

What we need now is heroes - millions of them. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

Almost all theological thought is anthropocentric and I just cannot buy into the anthropocentric ideology. Basically we're a bunch of conceited apes.

We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion. We need to eliminate nationalism and tribalism and become Earthlings. And as Earthlings, we need to recognize that all the other species that live on this planet are also fellow citizens and also Earthlings. This is a planet of incredible diversity of life-forms; it is not a planet of one species as many of us believe.

That fact is that we live in an extremely violent culture, and we all justify violence if it's for what we believe in .

It is true that many of the Sea Shepherd crewmembers are inexperienced, but the fact is that these volunteers bring a passion to the project that cannot be found in a hired crew.

Follow your dreams and use your natural born talents and skills to make this a better world for tomorrow.

I can't think of a greater legacy than, "Because you lived, another species survived."

I have been honored to serve the whales, dolphins, seals - and all the other creatures on this Earth. Their beauty, intelligence, strength, and spirit have inspired me. These beings have spoken to me, touched me, and I have been rewarded by friendship with many members of different species. If the whales survive and flourish, if the seals continue to live and give birth, and if I can contribute to ensuring their future prosperity, I will be forever happy.

Be a voice for the future and a voice for the planet.

We don't give a damn what you or anybody else on this planet thinks. We didn't sink those ships for you. We did it for the whales.

We are literally eating the oceans alive and there are simply not enough fish to continue to feed an ever expanding population of humanity.

I can assure you no whales are going to be killed today.

This is the contradiction we have in the media. We love vigilantes: Batman, Tarzan, Green Arrow - the comic books and the TV shows are filled with vigilantes. We love to promote it. Jesus Christ was a vigilante. We admire these people, but we don't want to be associated with them.

The tragedy is that there is so much more incentive - money - to destroy the ecology than there is to preserve it.

My position is this. If we can't protect sanctuaries, if we can't save the whales, the sharks, the fish, our oceans will die.

They [Greenpeace] forgot their original purpose and turned into a big, rich bureaucracy, more interested in fund-raising than in saving lives, so I got fed up and quit... they're a bunch of wimps.

I do what I do because it is the right thing to do. I am a warrior, and it is the way of the warrior to fight superior odds.

If you don't know an answer, a fact, a statistic - make it up on the spot.

Well lose more species of plants and animals between 2000 and 2065 than weve lost in the last 65 million years. If we dont find answers to these problems, were gonna be victims of this extinction event that were at fault for.

Musicians have the power to influence people and along with movie makers, they can reach and influence more people than any group of people, more than scientists and certainly more than politicians.

We live in a media culture and whoever controls and influences and uses media the best has the power for change.

There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win. Then you write history.

I have hope that humanity will be cured of our collective ecological insanity and that we adapt to living within the boundaries of the laws of ecology.

Social change comes through people.

I reject the idea that humans are superior to other life forms. . . Man is just an ape with an overly developed sense of superiority.

If you do not intend to kill anybody, if you make every effort to not kill and injure anybody, that's all you really can do. You can't stop somebody from walking into a situation, and we really can't be too overly preoccupied with this.

Immigration is one of the leading contributors to population growth.

We should not be living in human communities that enclose tiny preserved ecosystems within them. Human communities should be maintained in small population enclaves within linked wilderness ecosystems. No human community should be larger than 20,000 people and separated from other communities by wilderness areas. Communication systems can link the communities.

We are killing our host the planet Earth.... I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the 'AIDS of the Earth.' I make no apologies for that statement.... We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion.

All consumption should be local. No food products need to be transported over hundreds of miles to market. All commercial fishing should be abolished. If local communities need to fish the fish should be caught individually by hand. We need to stop flying, stop driving cars, and jetting around on marine recreational vehicles.

North American cats eat more fish than all the world's seals put together, yet we lay the blame on the seals for the declining fish stocks.

You can't love nature with a gun

Once we get three more directors elected, the Sierra Club will no longer be pro-hunting and pro-trapping and we can use the resources of the $95-million-a-year budget to address some of these issues.

There is no sustainable future for fisheries as long as human populations continue to increase.

Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels once remarked that if a lie is told often enough people will begin to see the lie as truth.

We need to stop burning fossil fuels and utilize only wind, water, and solar power with all generation of power coming from individual or small community units like windmills, waterwheels, and solar panels. Sea transportation should be by sail...Air transportation should be by solar powered blimps when air transportation is necessary.

Back in 1980, whale watching surpassed whaling as an industry. Now it's worth about four times as much. Whale watching provides far, far more jobs to people than whaling ever did. Whale watching has become an ally in the fight to end whaling.