Top 50 Van Jones Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When it gets harder to love, love harder.”

— Van Jones

2. “Come, then, let us go forward together with our united strength – and win a better future for generations to come.”

— Van Jones

3. “Environmental justice is the movement to ensure that no community suffers disproportionate environmental burdens or goes without enjoying fair environmental benefits.”

— Van Jones

4. “No one is above the law, and no one is beneath the law.”

— Van Jones

5. “It’s in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.”

— Van Jones

6. “I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym. This is the gym.”

— Van Jones

7. “The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance.”

— Van Jones

8. “I am sharing my faith with my sons. I pray, meditate and read devotionally. But let me be clear: I am a “person of faith” not because I am a saint, but because I am a sinner.”

— Van Jones

9. “If we stand for change, we can spark a popular movement with power, influence, magic and genius.”

— Van Jones

10. “In a democracy, you won’t always get to have your way. But you should always get to have your say.”

— Van Jones

11. “We should use the transition to a better energy strategy as an opportunity to create a better economy and a better country all around.”

— Van Jones

12. “The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy – one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.”

— Van Jones

13. “If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will NEVER be built.”

— Van Jones

14. “The time has come for a public-private community partnership to fix this country and put it back to work.”

— Van Jones

15. “Now it’s the age for the translator. It’s the age for the bridge builder. It’s the age for Velcro. It’s the age for Lego. It’s the age for combining what we already have into what we need.”

— Van Jones

16. “We just want government to be a smart, supportive, reliable partner to the forces that are working for good in this country.”

— Van Jones

17. “Even if we can solve the carbon problem for coal, it is still a non-renewable resource. At some point, coal supplies will drop.”

— Van Jones

18. “I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”

— Van Jones

19. “Each and every one of us should stop playing small and license ourselves to become one of the giants of the new century. We will need champions by the truckload.”

— Van Jones

20. “Will the new environmental leaders fight for eco-equity in this new “green economy” they are birthing?”

— Van Jones

21. “Now we stand at our own crossroads, looking out upon two futures: one with rising temperatures, rising oceans, and rising violence on a hot and strip-mined planet and another with expanding organic harvests, growing solar arrays, and deepening global partnerships on a green and thriving Earth.”

— Van Jones

22. “Clean energy is hippy power. But its also cowboy power, it’s rancher power, it’s Appalachian power.”

— Van Jones

23. “If we keep pulling death from the ground, we will reap death from the skies.”

— Van Jones

24. “I don’t put myself above anyone, and I have as many shortcomings as any non-believer. I just choose to turn to a higher power to help me gain wisdom and, I hope, improve over time.”

— Van Jones

25. “The human family has invaluable friends and irreplaceable allies in the plant and animal worlds. We cannot continue to tug at the web of life without tearing a hole in the very fabric of our earthly existence-and eventually falling through that hole ourselves.”

— Van Jones

26. “A green economy begins to replace some of the clunking and chugging of ugly machines with the wise effort of beautiful, skilled people. That means more jobs.”

— Van Jones

27. “The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun.”

— Van Jones

28. “We pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.”

— Van Jones

29. “Any successful long-term strategy will require that the green wave fully and passionately embrace the principles of eco-equity.”

— Van Jones

30. “Dr. King didn’t get famous giving a speech that said,“I have a complaint.””

— Van Jones

31. “Stop using your phones and laptops as toys and use them to start a revolution.”

— Van Jones

32. “To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people.”

— Van Jones

33. “The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism.”

— Van Jones

34. “Barack Obama volunteered to be the Captain of the Titanic AFTER it hit the iceberg.”

— Van Jones

35. “The unspoken imperative should be this: I want to understand you. And I want you to understand me – whether or not we ever agree.”

— Van Jones

36. “I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”

— Van Jones

37. “Clean coal represents a breakthrough in the marketing of coal, but not in the science of burning coal.”

— Van Jones

38. “Reversing global warming will take a World War II level of mobilization. It is the work of tens of millions, not hundreds of thousands.”

— Van Jones

39. “Most green-collar jobs are middle-skill jobs. That means they require more education that a high-school diploma, but less than a four-year degree.”

— Van Jones

40. “Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?”

— Van Jones

41. “We need a much deeper understanding of exactly what it is our industrial society, in its present creation, is jeopardizing. We need a more profound perception of what is at stake.”

— Van Jones

42. “In a sane society, common pain should lead to common purpose.”

— Van Jones

43. “That’s one component: rather than creating job-training pipelines that put these kids at the back of the line for the last century’s pollution-based jobs, we need to be creating opportunities for them to be at the front of the line for the new clean and green jobs.”

— Van Jones

44. “By kicking its carbon addiction, America will increase its national wealth and generate millions of jobs that can’t be outsourced.”

— Van Jones

45. “When you take the people who most need work and connect them with the work that most needs doing, you save. You save that young person’s life, you save a whole bunch of money, and you save the soul of this country when you invest and give people a chance, give people hope, give people opportunity.”

— Van Jones

46. “Ocean’s remarkable stories, depth of commitment, and eloquent communication make him a fantastic resource for conferences, universities, and indeed everyone who wants a potent dose of grounded inspiration.”

— Van Jones

47. “We have the chance to build this new energy economy in ways that reflect our deepest values of inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity for everyone.”

— Van Jones

48. “The Whitehouse is talking different because we are walking different.”

— Van Jones

49. “A family-friendly “eco-populism” can mobilize and unite millions who, at this point, would be turned off by a more extreme set of demands. The momentum will build, through these early efforts, for more comprehensive solutions.”

— Van Jones

50. “Americans need to see people who are honestly trying to learn from each other, even as we make our own points powerfully and fight for our own values and policies.”

— Van Jones