"Eventually I left home. Not because things were not good, but because I had this urge to do something. Looking back at it now, I still marvel at how I did all that I did. Leaving home, renouncing everything, having two to three sets of clothes, and taking a vow of celibacy—at 18! It’s almost like a segment of my life was cut dead."

"I have a deep resonance with the environment. My spiritual practice is feeling the divine, entering stillness, then feeling the Higher Worlds. When one does this, one develops a very keen affinity with nature. Divine Energy is in Nature."

"Integrity, public service and common good are the key deciding factors for any decision that will be taken,” Lopez had said upon her appointment. “Any industry must bear in mind that the common good is paramount in their operations and not the money they make."

"When one doesn’t have much, one treasures every little bit. I lived as the poor lived, so I learned how not to be wasteful—a trait I carry to this day where I use every bit of everything. I learned how to value empty containers, because they can be of use eventually."

"If I had calculated and maneuvered, I would never have forgiven myself."

"Any kind of mining operation in a watershed, that’s like saying that the gold and the nickel are more important than the water that our people drink."

"How can it be responsible to do open pit mining in a country that is most vulnerable to climate change?"

"If there is responsible mining why is it that wherever there is mining, there is poverty? The poorest sites in the country are mining areas."

"Every action we take has an impact on the environment, choose wisely."

"Nature is our greatest teacher, let's learn from it."

"Protecting the environment is not a choice, it is a responsibility."

"The beauty of nature is a gift, let's cherish and protect it."

"But while we are in this body, let’s be healthy, and contribute in whatever way we can to a world that runs on love. I have no doubt that that’s the way."

"At the end of the day, they have to face the reality. What difference are these mining companies causing them?"

"I believe that through care of the environment and good marketing, communities can get out of poverty very quickly."

"I am in a position to make a difference."

"It gave me an exposure and appreciation of how poor people live and survive,"

"Like all institutions, one has a goal, but often what happens is something else. As I implied earlier, I grew up in a bubble where people were good and loving and true. This results in a naïveté about people and life."

"I don't like suffering and I don't like injustice."

"If you killed the Environment, you kill everything."

"The damage was urgent and I needed to act with urgency."

"I support him because he believes in helping people. He’s sincere about that. He really is. It’s in his heart. I admire him for that. We agree on a lot of things. I told him give me one year, maybe two years. I’ll make a difference. If I don’t I’ll leave. He said okay."

"And whose duty is it to protect our people? It's the government. And when you make decisions based on business interests, you have shirked your responsibility. You have lost the moral ascendancy to rule the government because to you, business and money is more important than the welfare of our people."

"It is the constitutional right of every Filipino to a clean and healthy environment. It was a dream and a promise we had for the country and it is unfortunate that business interests have in fact run the day."

"You can quote me on this. Politics is really messy. All I want to do is just to save water."

"I’m not a politician. That’s not who I am."

"Each open pit is a financial liability for government for life," Lopez told a media briefing. "It kills the economic potential of the place."

"It's the mandate of the mining law that you should not do anything which puts at risk the lives of present and future generations."

"What I’m doing is life. You need to sustain life. Maybe from that comes a deeper and more enlightened perception of what is needed to sustain life, and the role of the environment in the sustenance of life."

"We cannot protect what we do not love."

"Life is what you make of it. The experience of life is how you see it."

"We’re not small! We should believe we can fly."

"When you’re stressed, you go to a place which is beautiful and healing and peaceful."

"The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth."

"If we kill our land, our water, our air for whatever reason, you kill life. For me, you kill the constitutional right of a Filipino, which is the right to a clean and healthy environment. Here it is forces of greed and selfishness that threaten life. I see the government as the only institution that’s in the position to curtail the forces of greed and selfishness. It’s the role of government to do that."

"I’m going to do the right thing and let the dice fall where it may."

"My inner self had a thirst that was not being quenched."

"We have a beautiful country. Let’s not allow greed and selfishness to rape it."

"Then I met someone in Harvard who recommended I go to an ashram that taught meditation. When I entered the ashram, apart from the meditation, they had some singing. I had an experience. I felt something deep. Tears rolled down my cheeks, I felt something I had not felt in church or in school. I had a feeling of Divine Love. That changed my life forever."

"I lived for six years in Kenya. Two of those years were in a slum area where we had to stand in line for water, and the toilet system was pathetic. It was there that I learned to value water. I had one pail, and that was it: for bathing myself and using the last bit for washing my underwear. When one doesn’t have much, one treasures every little bit. I lived as the poor lived, so I learned how not to be wasteful—a trait I carry to this day where I use every bit of everything. I learned how to value empty containers, because they can be of use eventually."

"𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚."

""We have this life to live. It doesn't last forever. We do service for the common good and we take on systematic, dynamic steps to develop our own potential. We make a difference for ourselves. It's a very good way to go"."

"As some of you may know, I am having health challenges which I have found a blessing. So yesterday morning, I was was blessed to have a visit from Gary, his wife Angeli, and the sister of Maricel who is also a very beautiful person."

"For all these billions, what do we get in return? Think about the damage done by mining corporations to our biodiversity, to agriculture, and to the health of those living in the area. They don’t pay for these damages"

"If we in this country dream and hope the common good and commitment to integrity, I have no doubt in my heart and in my mind that our country will see the light of day."

"You are stepping on very big business toes."

"Life is what you make of it. The experience of life is how you see it. You can see it negatively or you can see even the seeming failures as a positive opportunity to grow. If we take on this positive bent, everyone around benefits. My consistent experience in life is that as long as one commits to integrity and service, there are Divine Forces that help. I feel it every day, when I meditate in the morning, as I do my work. Life is a challenge. There are also negative forces that exist, and they are within one’s self. One needs to be keenly aware of them."

"We are a country of beautiful volcanoes, mountains, rivers, and corals. It's absolutely spectacular."

"I’m going to do the right thing and let the dice fall where it may. And I am going to hope that maybe these politicians, even if they’re funded by mining money, must have love for God and country in their hearts."

"I became a full-fledged yoga missionary. I went to Portugal, India, then Africa."