Quotes about trees

„A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.“

—  William Blake English Romantic poet and artist 1757 - 1827

„Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.“

—  Molière French playwright and actor 1622 - 1673

„If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears.“

—  Mahmoud Darwich Palestinian writer 1941 - 2008

„I must see new things and investigate them. I want to taste dark water and see crackling trees and wild winds.“

—  Egon Schiele austrian painter 1890 - 1918

„You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.“

—  Malcolm X American human rights activist 1925 - 1965

„Spring: trees flying up to their birds“

—  Paul Celan Romanian poet and translator 1920 - 1970

„I've been 15 years in the nut ward, for trying to stop the trees from being cut down, from trying to rearrange the lifestyle of a bunch of people who don't want to change. But they're gonna change because a cold wind is blowing. You're gonna change or else there's going to be no life left on the planet Earth.“

—  Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHq2aN9tYE by Penny Daniels (1989)

„If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.“

—  Maggie Stiefvater American writer 1981

The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven Boys (2012)

„Steadfastness in believing doth not exclude all temptations from without. When we say a tree is firmly rooted, we do not say the wind never blows upon it.“

—  John Owen English theologian 1616 - 1683

„There is something about spending Christmas alone, naked, sitting by the Christmas tree gripping a shotgun, that lets you know your life is spinning dangerously outta control.“

—  Nikki Sixx American musician 1958

Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star

„It is extraordinary that nobody nowadays under the stress of great troubles is turned into stone or a bird or a tree or some inanimate object; they used to undergo such metamorphoses in ancient times (or so they say), though whether that is myth or a true story I know not. Maybe it would be better to change one's nature into something that lacks all feeling, rather than be so sensitive to evil. Had that been possible, these calamities would in all probability have turned me to stone“

—  Anna Comnena, book Alexiad

The Alexiad, Preface

„The black earth drinks, in turn
The trees drink up the earth.
The sea the torrents drinks, the sun the sea,
And the moon drinks the sun.
Why, comrades, do ye flout me,
If I, too, wish to drink?“

—  Anacreon Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns -570 - -485 BC

Odes, 21.

„I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees.“

—  Pablo Neruda, book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.
"Every Day You Play" (Juegas Todos las Días), XIV, p. 35.
Variant: I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

„The importance of oaks both in the economy and in the forest ecosystem is big, but the exceptional part is that this tree plays in the old beliefs and legends.“

—  Marek Żukow-Karczewski Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist 1961

Oak - the king of the Polish trees, "Aura" 9, 1988-09, p. 20-21. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-72dccf88-5430-4d92-8617-9f550865d9b9?q=1dac2329-67be-4b51-b5b3-4554b1ebe953$15&qt=IN_PAGE

„I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then.“

—  Georgia O'Keeffe American artist 1887 - 1986

„Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.“

—  Wangari Maathai Kenyan environmental and political activist 1940 - 2011

Speech at Goldman Awards, San Francisco (24 April 2006)

„Today, I went to sleep under a plum tree. There, I dreamed I was a butterfly, flying so pleasently. Then, I fell asleep, and the dream ended. Now- I have to ask myself - am I Zhuang Zi who dreamed of a butterfly? Or am I that butterfly, dreaming I am Zhuang Zi?“

—  Zhuangzi classic Chinese philosopher -369 - -286 BC

„Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search. And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose — out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air — it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close.“

—  Rajneesh Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement 1931 - 1990

The Discipline Of Transcendence (1978)

„Storms make trees take deeper roots.“

—  Dolly Parton American singer-songwriter and actress 1946