“An oak tree is an oak tree. That is all it has to do. If an oak tree is less than an oak tree, then we are all in trouble.”
Source: Being Peace
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Thich Nhat Hanh 169
Religious leader and peace activist 1926Related quotes
“You must remember that an oak tree is not a crime against the acorn.”
Source: War in Heaven (1998), p. 634

Nichts ist weniger verheißend als Frühreife; die junge Distel sieht einem zukünftigen Baume viel ähnlicher als die junge Eiche.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 27.

“You woke up on the wrong side of the oak tree, didn’t you? (Acheron)”
Source: Acheron

A Tree Song,
Puck of Pook's Hill 1906
The brave old Oak (lyrics, 1837).

The Other World (1657)
Context: You will say, 'How can chance assemble in one place all the things necessary to produce an oak tree?' My answer is that it would be no miracle if the matter thus arranged had not formed an oak. But it would have been a very great miracle if, once the matter was thus arranged, an oak had not been formed. A few less of some shapes, and it would have been an elm, a poplar, a willow, an elder, heather or moss. A little more of some other shapes and it might have been a sensitive plant, an oyster in its shell, a worm, a fly, a frog, a sparrow, an ape or a man.