“You are axes, in a world of wood. And the wood remembers when it has been cut, even if the axe forgets.”

—  John Amaechi

in a speech to students at Phillips Exeter Academy, 2007

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 4, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You are axes, in a world of wood. And the wood remembers when it has been cut, even if the axe forgets." by John Amaechi?
John Amaechi photo
John Amaechi 2
Professional basketball player 1970

Related quotes

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Colour Out of Space (1927)
Context: West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentle slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.

Sylvia Plath photo

“Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes travelling
Off from the centre like horses.”

"Words" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/words.html
Ariel (1965)

Thomas Jefferson photo

“A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject?”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Oliver Evans (16 January 1814); published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1905) Vol. 13, p. 66
1810s
Context: A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject? Such a law, instead of enlarging our conveniences, as was intended, would most fearfully abridge them, and crowd us by monopolies out of the use of the things we have.

Henry Adams photo
Jeffrey Eugenides photo
Nelson Mandela photo

“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela on challenges, Letter to Winnie Mandela (1 February 1975), written on Robben Island. Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
1970s

Naomi Novik photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Sarah Dessen photo

Related topics