Top 60 Greta Thunburg Quotes

My message to the Americans is the same as to everyone – that is to unite behind the science and to act on the science.

I’m not saying that people should stop flying. I’m just saying it needs to be easier to be climate neutral.

Some say we should not engage in activism. Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?

Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.

I feel strange when I get applauded by people in power… because it’s obvious that it’s them I’m criticizing, but they can’t show that in front of the cameras. It’s quite funny sometimes.

The real danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like action is happening when in fact nothing is being done.

I don’t care about age. Nor do I care about those who do not accept the science. I don’t have as much experience, and therefore I listen more. But I also have the right to express my opinion, no matter my age.

If there really was a crisis, and if this crisis was caused by our emissions, you would at least see some signs. Not just flooded cities, tens of thousands of dead people, and whole nations leveled to piles of torn down buildings. You would see some restrictions. But no. And no one talks about it.

I don’t really like being in the centre of attention.

Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ‘solve the climate crisis.’ But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

There are thousands of ways to take action. For example, plant trees, pick up litter, join an organisation or movement that makes a difference and especially try to influence adults and put pressure on people in power.

I don’t think I would be interested in the climate at all if I had been like everyone else.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

Being young is a great advantage, since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.

Of course, individual change doesn’t make much difference in a holistic picture… but we need both systemic change and individual change.

Many people, especially in the U.S., see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models.

My message is that if we do not care about the climate crisis and if we do not act now then almost no other question is going to matter in the future.

It’s empowering to know I am doing something, I am taking a stand, I am disrupting.

I have Asperger’s, I’m on the autism spectrum, so I don’t really care about social codes. It makes you think differently.

I’m on the autism spectrum. I don’t usually follow social coding and so therefore I go my own way.

I do not see myself as a celebrity or an icon or things like that… I have not really done anything.

Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

Giving up cannot be an option.

The thing that’s made me open my eyes to what was happening to the environment and climate was films and documentaries.

People are unaware of what is going on. When I talk to people, they know the basics, they know the planet is warming because of greenhouse gases… but they don’t know the actual consequence of that.

We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with.

When I have been travelling around to speak in different countries, I am always offered help to write about the specific climate policies in specific countries. But that is not really necessary. Because the basic problem is the same everywhere.

I personally have stopped flying. I have stopped eating meat and dairy.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

The symbolism of the climate strike is that if you adults don’t give a damn about my future, I won’t either.

To do your best is no longer good enough. We now have to do the seemingly impossible.

I mean, people aren’t continuing like this and not doing anything because they are evil, or because they don’t want to. We aren’t destroying the biosphere because we are selfish. We are doing it simply because we are unaware.

My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

I think that once you fully understand the climate and ecological emergencies, then you know what you can do as well. And, of course, there’s a lot of things you can do in your everyday life, but we cannot be focusing on these individual things you can do. We have to see the full picture.

When I’m really interested in something, I get superfocused on that. And I can spend hours upon hours not getting tired of reading about it and still be interested to learn more about it.

I don’t easily fall for lies, I can see through things.

We should not underestimate ourselves, because if lots of individuals go together then we can accomplish almost anything.

I don’t care about hate and threats from climate crisis deniers. I just ignore them.

I believe that one person can make a difference.

Sweden is not a green paradise, it has one of the biggest carbon footprints.

I think in many ways that we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange. They keep saying that climate change is an existential threat and the most important issue of all. And yet they just carry on like before.

I have promised myself that I’m going to do everything I can for as long as I can.

Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.

There’s always going to be people who don’t understand or accept the united science, and I will just ignore them, as I’m only acting and communicating on the science.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

I know so many people who feel hopeless, and they ask me, ‘What should I do?’ And I say: ‘Act. Do something.’ Because that is the best medicine against sadness and depression.

Many people seem to have this double moral. They say one thing and then do another thing. They say that the climate crisis is very important and yet they do nothing about it.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

You can rebel in different ways. Civil disobedience is rebelling. As long as it’s peaceful, of course.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

Nothing is being done to stop the climate and ecological emergency from happening and to secure the future wellbeing for future generations.

I’m telling you there is hope. I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people.

We can no longer save the world by playing by the rules.

We are living in the beginning of a mass extinction and our climate is breaking down.

For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis.

At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. I didn’t think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilisation, we wouldn’t be focusing on anything else. That would be our first priority. So I didn’t understand how that added up.