Roots Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Trees are but rivers of sap and woody fibre flowing from the atmosphere and emptying in to the earth by their trunks - as their roots flow upward to the surface.

Henry David Thoreau

The question of real, lasting world peace concerns human beings, so basic human feelings are also at its roots. Through inner peace, genuine world peace can be achieved. In this the importance of individual responsibility is quite clear; an atmosphere of peace must first be created within ourselves, then gradually expanded to include our families, our communities, and ultimately the whole planet.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The roots of education … are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

The State has its root in time, and will ripe and rot in time.

Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not. It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.

Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune.

So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.

Henry David Thoreau

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

This is why moral uneasiness is destined to become even more acute. It is obvious that a fundamental defect, or rather a series of defects, indeed a defective machinery is at the root of contemporary economics and materialistic civilization, which does not allow the human family to break free from such radically unjust situations.

Pope John Paul II

Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons he had left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould, about the roots of their vines, procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and instructive experiments to light.

The spirit of the valley never dies.
It is called the subtle and profound female.
The gate of the subtle and profound female Is the root of Heaven and Earth.
It is continuous, and seems to be always existing. Use it and you will never wear it out.

A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.

Napoleon I of France

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

John F. Kennedy

But speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance. Speak the truth, and all things alive orbrute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is to my mind no doubt that the concept of beautiful had its roots in sexual excitation and that its original meaning was sexually stimulating.

And now, the main thing! As far as I can see, my next work will be called "Human Bisexuality." It will go to the root of the problem and say the last word it may be granted to say — the last and the most profound.

My Marxism has taken root and become purified. I believe in armed struggle as the only solution for those peoples who fight to free themselves, and I am consistent with my beliefs.

A just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can't aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

Swadeshism is not a cult of hatred. It is a doctrine of selfless service that has its roots in the purest ahimsa, i.e. love.

From sorrow to sorrow love crosses its islands and establishes roots that are watered by weeping.

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

Your favour of July 31, was duly received, and was read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor to both the head and heart of the writer. Mine on the subject of slavery of negroes have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort, nay I fear not much serious willingness to relieve them & ourselves from our present condition of moral & political reprobation.

Thomas Jefferson

What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man … the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights.

Winston Churchill

The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in Schonerer's opinion, in the fact that the directing body of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that for this very reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our nationality.

We nestle in nature, and draw our living as parasites from her roots and grains...

Ralph Waldo Emerson