Top 60 Masanobu Fukuoka Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

Featured in: Environment Quotes

2. “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

3. “Ignorance, hatred and greed are killing nature.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

Featured in: Quotes About Greed

4. “The simple hearth of the small farm is the true center of our universe.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

5. “The final principle of natural farming is NO PESTICIDES. Nature is in perfect balance when left alone.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

6. “Left alone, the earth maintains its own fertility, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

7. “The greening of the desert means sowing seeds in people’s hearts and creating a green paradise of peace on earth.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

8. “We receive our nourishment from the Mother Earth. So we should put our hands together in an attitude of prayer and say “please” and “thank you” when dealing with nature.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

9. “There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

10. “If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

11. “The real path to natural farming requires that a person know what unaltered nature is, so that he or she can instinctively understand what needs to be done – and what must not be done – to work in harmony with its processes.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

12. “The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity’s trying to accomplish something.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

13. “Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

14. “My ultimate dream is to sow seeds in the desert. To revegetate the deserts is to sow seed in people’s hearts.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

15. “The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

16. “There is no one so great as the one who does not try to accomplish anything.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

17. “We must find our way back to true nature. We must set ourselves to the task of revitalizing the earth. Regreening the earth, sowing seeds in the desert – that is the path society must follow.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

18. “Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

19. “Modern research divides nature into tiny pieces and conducts tests that conform neither with natural law nor with practical experience. The results are arranged for the convenience of research, not according to the needs of the farmer.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

20. “If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

21. “As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

22. “By raising tall trees for windbreaks, citrus underneath, and a green manure cover down on the surface, I have found a way to take it easy and let the orchard manage itself!”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

23. “Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

24. “We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a ‘movement’ not to bring anything about.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

25. “Life on a small farm might seem primitive, but by living such a life we become able to discover the Great Path. I believe that one who deeply respects his neighborhood and everyday world in which he lives will be shown the greatest of all worlds.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

26. “Before researchers become researches they should become philosophers.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

27. “I wonder how it is that people’s philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

28. “A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

29. “Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body. Chemically grown vegetables may be eaten for food, but they cannot be used as medicine.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

30. “I started natural farming after the war with just one small plot, but gradually I acquired additional acreage by taking over surrounding pieces of abandoned land and caring for them by hand.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

31. “Just to live here and now – this is the true basis of human life.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

32. “Natural farming is just farming, nothing more. You don’t have to be a spiritually oriented person to practice my methods.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

33. “I believe that even ‘returning-to-nature’ and anti pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over development of the present age.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

34. “Although natural farming – since it can teach people to cultivate a deep understanding of nature – may lead to spiritual insight, it’s not strictly a spiritual practice.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

35. “Until there is a reversal of the sense of values which cares more for size and appearance than for quality, there will be no solving the problem of food pollution.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

36. “If nature is left to itself, fertility increases. Organic remains of plants and animals accumulate and are decomposed on the surface by bacteria and fungi. With the movement of rainwater, the nutrients are taken deep into the soil to become food for microorganisms, earthworms, and other small animals. Plant roots reach to the lower soil strata and draw the nutrients back up to the surface.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

37. “Why do you have to develop? If economic growth rises from 5% to 10%, is happiness going to double? What’s wrong with a growth rate of 0%? Isn’t this a rather stable kind of economics? Could there be anything better than living simply and taking it easy?”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

38. “Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything, and every action is a futile, meaningless effort.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

39. “Straw mulch, a ground cover of white clover interplanted with the crops, and temporary flooding all provide effective weed control in my fields.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

40. “The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

41. “If a farmer does abandon his or her “tame” fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

42. “Extravagance of desire is the fundamental cause which has led the world into its present predicament. Fast rather than slow, more rather than less – this flashy “development” is linked directly to society’s impending collapse.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

43. “Orang sekarang ini makan dengan pikiran mereka, tidak dengan tubuh mereka.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

44. “If we do have a food crisis it will not be caused by the insufficiency of nature’s productive power, but by the extravagance of human desire.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

45. “In nature’s cyclical rhythms, there are no grounds for the discriminatory view that underlies Darwin’s view of superiority and inferiority that deems single-celled organisms as lower, and more complicated life forms as higher. It would be more appropriate to say we are all one continuous life-form.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

46. “Nature does not change, although the way of viewing nature invariably changes from age to age.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

47. “When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of a problem, it is generally assumed that the corrective measures will solve the problem itself. They seldom do.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

48. “My idea is entirely different. I think we should mix all the species together and scatter them worldwide, completely doing away with their uneven distribution. This would give nature a full palette to work with as it establishes a new balance given the current conditions. I call this the Second Genesis.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

49. “The heart that loves the wicked ego creates the hated enemy.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka

50. “I believe that if one fathoms deeply one’s own neighborhood and the everyday world in which he lives, the greatest of worlds will be revealed.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka