Tree Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can't grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground.

He throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

The quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened,

J. R. R. Tolkien

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me: There lie they, and here lie we Under the spreading chestnut tree.

Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, Unnerves his strength, invites his end.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Humanity is the rich effuvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.

Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

On C. S. Lewis' death:

So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age—like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves, there is one religion but any number of faiths.

The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen—this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress.

Let us not confuse objectives with methods. Too many so-called leaders of the nation fail to see the forest because of the trees. Too many of them fail to recognize the vital necessity of planning for definite objectives. True leadership calls for the setting forth of the objectives and the rallying of public opinion in support of these objectives.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Where the citizen uses a mere sliver or board, the pioneer uses the whole trunk of a tree.

Henry David Thoreau

Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.

Rudyard Kipling

A man watches his pear-tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.

Abraham Lincoln

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows. Here they find manure and an open space for the first year at least, when they are not choked by grass or weeds. In this way, evidently, many of these clumps of barberries are commenced.

Henry David Thoreau

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan's behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I've wrestled with alligators,
I've tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I'm bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.
I'm so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He'll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

All religions are branches of the same mighty tree, but I must not change over from one branch to another for the sake of expediency.

Thin clouds form, and the shadows lengthen out. They have no breadth, as summer shadows have; there are no leaves on the trees or fat clouds in the sky to make them thick. They are gaunt, mean shadows that bite the ground like teeth. As the sun nears the horizon, its benevolent yellow begins to deepen, to become infected, until it glares an angry inflamed orange. It throws a variegated glow over the horizon.

Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there, something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.

G. K. Chesterton

How rich a God our God is! He gives enough, but we don't notice it. He gave the whole world to Adam, but this was nothing in Adam's eyes; he was concerned about one tree and had to ask why God had forbidden him to eat it.

A man as he ought to be: that sounds to us as insipid as "a tree as it ought to be."

Friedrich Nietzsche

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not to bar
Our passage to our journey's end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are....