“Compared with me, a tree is immortal.”

— Sylvia Plath

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Sylvia Plath342

American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932–1963

Edward Abbey book Desert Solitaire

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
Source: Desert Solitaire

“Comparative religion and philosophy show that the Thinker can regard itself as mortal, as immortal, as both mortal and immortal (the reincarnation model) or even as non-existent (Buddhism).”

Robert Anton Wilson book Prometheus Rising

Source: Prometheus Rising (1983), Ch. 1 : The Thinker & The Prover, p. 25
Context: Comparative religion and philosophy show that the Thinker can regard itself as mortal, as immortal, as both mortal and immortal (the reincarnation model) or even as non-existent (Buddhism). It can think itself into living in a Christian universe, a Marxist universe, a scientific-relativistic universe, or a Nazi universe—among many possibilities.
As psychiatrists and psychologists have often observed (much to the chagrin of their medical colleagues), the Thinker can think itself sick, and can even think itself well again.
The Prover is a much simpler mechanism. It operates on one law only: Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.
To cite a notorious example which unleashed incredible horrors earlier in this century, if the Thinker thinks that all Jews are rich, the Prover will prove it. It will find evidence that the poorest Jew in the most run-down ghetto has hidden money somewhere.

“If I compare arithmetic with a tree that unfolds upward into a multitude of techniques and theorems while its root drives into the depths, then it seems to me that the impetus of the root.”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Gottlob Frege, Montgomery Furth (1964). The Basic Laws of Arithmetic: Exposition of the System. p. 10

“How old is she now?" he asked.
"Hard to say. She was a tree for a while. Now she's immortal.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

56 Phocion
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“Diogenes compared them to fig-trees growing over precipices; for their fruit was devoured by daws and crows, not by men.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

Galen, on Diogenes's views on the ignorant rich, in Exhortation to Study the Arts, Wakefield (1796), p. 217; cf. Stobaeus, iv. 31b. 48.
Latter day attributions