Sourced

• My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns.
  • The Washington Post, May 24, 1981

• That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have: to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations. I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns; whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations.
  • Testimony before the House Interior Committee, February 1981

• "We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber."
  • Quoted in Media Transparency http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=1082

• "Everything Cheney's saying, everything the president's saying - they're saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely ... Twenty years later, it sounds like they've just dusted off the old work."
  • Watt praising Bush energy and environmental policies Watt Applauds Bush Energy Strategy Denver Post May 16, 2001

• "If the troubles from environmentalists cannot be solved in the jury box or at the ballot box, perhaps the cartridge box should be used."
  • The Earth's Storm Troopers Phoenix New Times August 7, 1991 also http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13117875.900.html.

• We have every mixture you can have. I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent.
  • Speaking before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on September 21, 1983, in reference to members of the U.S. Commission on Fair Market Value Policy for Federal Coal Leasing

• Liberals have shifted government into a position of being neutral between right and wrong. By concentrating power in government institutions, liberals chisel at the three pillars of society: the family unit, work ethic and faith. That's not good for America.
  • U.S. News and World Report, November 11, 1985

Unsourced

• I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It's liberals and Americans.
  • 1982

Misattributed

• God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.
  • Attributed in Austin Miles, Setting the Captives Free (ISBN 978-0879756178) and widely repeated after appearing in in Grist magazine (Scherer, Glenn (2004-10-27). "The Godly Must Be Crazy." ). Grist has since retracted and apologized for Scherer's comment, noting that the quotation appears nowhere in Watt's Congressional testimony or any other source it could find. Watt has responded:

    I never said it. Never believed it. Never even thought it. I know no Christian who believes or preaches such error. The Bible commands conservation—that we as Christians be careful stewards of the land and resources entrusted to us by the Creator.