“We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is overeager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.”

“Too many for the fruit cut down the tree,
And find their gain in world-wide misery.”

“The first of men did no more than take the fruit of the tree, and that, we are told, was sin. Modern humanity "tortures the tree in order the sooner to obtain its fruit."”

“The old woman was the kind who would not cut down a large old tree because it was a large old tree.”

“It is always necessary that the substance or essence of a person be good before there can be any good works and that good works follow and proceed from a person who is already good. Christ says in Matthew 7:18: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”… The fruit does not make the tree good or bad but the tree itself is what determines the nature of the fruit. In the same way, a person first must be good or bad before doing a good or bad work.”

“With cruell tusks a savage boar imploys,
Who all king Œneus' fertile fields destroys:
The stately trees tore from their fiber'd roots,
Silver'd with blossoms of delicious fruits.”

“Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.”

“Thus we have reached the point, it is painful to recognize, where the only persons accounted wise are those who can reduce the pursuit of wisdom to a profitable traffic.”
Quin eo deventum est ut iam (proh dolor!) non existimentur sapientes nisi qui mercennarium faciunt studium sapientiae.

“Christianity has found its triumphs and shown its fruits in every nation and tribe upon the globe; and its results have been in every case the same. Virtue, social order, prosperity, blessedness, the elevation and improvement, in all respects, of the human life, are the uniform and exclusive inheritance of those who receive the gospel.”

“So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.”