Quotes about birch (24 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Instinctively we both looked for the inscriptions we cut, once upon a time, on trees and on stones, in foolish delight. We sought them like scattered treasure, on the strange cheeks of the old willows, near the tendrils of the fall, on the birches that stand like candles in front of the violet thicket, and on the old fir which so often sheltered us with its dark wings. Many inscriptions have disappeared. Some are worn away because things do; some are covered by a host of other inscriptions or they are distorted and ugly. Nearly all have passed on as if they had been passers-by.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts

Tree , Time

“One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

Robert Frost Birches

General sources
Source: "Birches" (1920)
Context: I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

“So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Dreams

“On the way I stood a moment looking out across the marshes with tall cattails, a patch of water, more marsh, then the woods with a few birch trees shining white at the edge on beyond. In the darkness it all looked just like I felt. Wet and swampy and gloomy, very gloomy. In the morning I painted it. My memory of it is that it was probably my best painting that summer..”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

About the summer of Art Students League, New York 1913/14
1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Way , Tree , Water , Memory

“The birch, most shy and lady-like of trees,
Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves,
And hints at her foregone gentilities
With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

An Indian Summer Reverie http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1164/, st. 8 (1846)

Tree , Wealth

“'I can repeat the very words you were saying:
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build."
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

1910s, Home Burial (1914)

Death , Thinking , Time

“Outbursts blossom in Lapland rapidly
. in earth, in barley, grass, dwarf birches too.
This I have pondered very frequently
when people’s daily lives there I review.

Oh why are all our beautiful ones dying
and why do great ones rot in disarray?
Oh why among us many minds are losing?
Oh why so few the kantele now play?

Oh why here everywhere a man soon crashes
like hay when scythed – ambitious man indeed,
a man of honour, sense – it all soon smashes,
or breaks apart one day in life of need?

Elsewhere, a fire still glints in greying tresses,
in old ones glows still spirit of the sun.
But here our new-born infants death possesses
and youth will grave’s dull earth soon press upon.

And what of me? Why ponder I so sadly?
An early sign, be sure, of grim old age.
Oh why the blood-spent rule keep I not gladly,
but sigh instead at people’s mortal wage?

One answer is there only: Lapland’s summer.
In thinking then my mind is soon distressed.
In Lapland birdsong, joy are short – a glimmer –
as flowers’ blooms and gladness wilt and rest.

But winter’s wrath is only long. Dear moment
when resting thoughts delay and don’t take flight,
in search of lands where blazing sun is potent
and take their leave of Lapland’s icy bite.

Oh, great white birds, you guests of summer Lapland,
with noble thoughts we’ll greet you, when you’re here!
Oh, tarry here among us, build your nests and
a while delay your southern journey near!

Oh, from the swan now learn a lesson wholesome!
They leave in autumn, come back in the spring.
It’s our own peaceful shore that us-wards pulls them,
Our sloping fell’s kind shelter will them bring.

Batter the air with whooping wings and leave us!
Wonders perform, enlighten other lands!
But when you see that winter’s gone relieve us –
I beg, beseech, re-clasp our weary hands!”

Eino Leino (1878–1926) Finnish poet and journalist

Life , Death , People , Youth

“The John Birch Society is a good, patriotic society. I don't agree with what its founder said about me, but that does not detract from the fact that its membership is comprised of many fine Americans dedicated to the preservation of our libertarian Republic.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Reported in an editorial in the Alton Evening Telegraph (July 14,1964), A-4; appeared in a display ad in the Los Angeles Times (September 27, 1964), D14. Reported as misattributed in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 24, stating that an aide of Eisenhower's had denied that Eisenhower had made the remark.
Misattributed

“Worpswede, I cannot get you out of my mind. There was such atmosphere there – right down to the tips of your toes. Your magnificent pine trees! I call them my men – thick, gnarled, powerful, and tall – and yet with the most delicate nerves and fibers in them. That is my image of the ideal artist. And your birch trees – delicate, slender young virgins who delight the eyes. With that relaxed and dreamy face, as if life had not really begun for them… But then there are some already masculine and bold, with strong and straight trunks. Those are my 'Modern women'. And you willows, with your knotty trunks… You are my old men with silver beards. I have company enough, indeed I do, and it's my own private company. We understand each other well and nod friendly answers back and forth. Life, life, life!”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

a quote of her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as cited in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 192
1897

Life , Women , Men , Understanding

“Worpswede, Worpswede, Worpswede! [small rural village in North-Germany were a colony of German artists was working then, including Paula] My sunken Bell mood! Birches, birches, pine trees and old willows. Beautiful brown moors – exquisite brown! The canals with their black reflections, black as asphalt..”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

Quote from her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as cited in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 192
1897

Beauty , Mood , Tree

“Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter’s sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Three Days to See (1933)

Feeling , Search , Spring , Flowers

“I know we can go too far and try to whitewash what is plain sin; to seek to excuse really bad behavior and to account for it in terms of infantile environment, traumatic experiences, psychological complexes and the like. But I regard it as a sign of progress that we are at last doubting the value of the cane and tawse in the schoolroom and the birch and the hangman’s rope in the jails.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.246

Behavior

“I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

TV interview with David Frost and quoted in The Sunday Times Magazine 16 September 1973 http://books.google.com/books?id=4cl5c4T9LWkC&lpg=PA754&q=%22I'm+all+for+bringing+back+the+birch+but+only+between+consenting+adults%22&pg=PA754#v=onepage
1970s

“Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1743
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Bee

“Pale purple as the bloom on a ripe plum, veined with the gold of late flowering gorse, set with small slender birches, just turning yellow, with red-berried rowans and thicket of bracken, the heath lay steeped in sunshine.”

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

Source: Heatherly, Chapter 1

Flowers

“To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser. It is as if a ship captain should sail to India from the Port of London; and having brought a chart of the Thames on deck at his first setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole voyage.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“My cry could only waken him. And what
a poor gift: I, confined to my own form,
when I used to be a birch, a lizard
shedding times and satin skins
in many shimmering hues.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"I Am Too Close..."
Poems New and Collected (1998), Salt (1962)

Time , Cry

“This is the song for Baby Birch.
I will never know you.
And at the back of what we've done,
there is that knowledge of you.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Have One On Me (2010)

Knowledge , Baby

“All the efforts of several hundred thousand people, crowded in a small space, to disfigure the land on which they lived; all the stone they covered it with to keep it barren; how so diligently every sprouting blade of grass was removed; all the smoke of coal and naphtha; all the cutting down of trees and driving off of cattle could not shut out the spring, even from the city. The sun was shedding its light; the grass, revivified, was blooming forth, where it was left uncut, not only on the greenswards of the boulevard, but between the flag-stones, and the birches, poplars and wild-berry trees were unfolding their viscous leaves; the limes were unfolding their buds; the daws, sparrows and pigeons were joyfully making their customary nests, and the flies were buzzing on the sun-warmed walls. Plants, birds, insects and children were equally joyful. Only men—grown-up men—continued cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. People saw nothing holy in this spring morning, in this beauty of God's world—a gift to all living creatures—inclining to peace, good-will and love, but worshiped their own inventions for imposing their will on each other.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 1

Love , Men , God , Children

“Plants and plant-eaters co-evolved. And plants aren't the passive partners in the chain of terrestrial life. Hence today's Pop Ecology movement is quite wrong in believing that plants are happy to fill their role as fodder for herbivores in a harmonious and perfectly balanced ecosystem. A birch tree doesn't feel cosmic fulfillment when a moose munches its leaves; the tree species, in fact, evolves to fight the moose, to keep the animal's munching lips away from vulnerable young leaves and twigs. In the final analysis, the merciless hand of natural selection will favor the birch genes that make the tree less and less palatable to the moose in generation after generation. No plant species could survive for long by offering itself as unprotected fodder.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 179
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Life , Feeling , Nature , Tree

“Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders.”

Arthur Symons (1865–1945) British poet

An Introduction to the Study of Browning, preface (1906).

“It was sweet, my love, a while
To live our life beneath the grove of birch,
More sweet was it fondly to embrace
Together hid in our woodland retreat,
Together to be wandering on the ocean's shore,
Together lingering by the forest's edge,
Together to plant birches – task of joy –
Together weave fair plumage of the trees,
Together talk of love with my slim girl,
Together gaze on solitary fields.”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Digrif fu, fun, un ennyd
Dwyn dan un bedwlwyn ein byd.
Cydlwynach , difyrrach fu,
Coed olochwyd, cydlechu,
Cydfyhwman marian môr,
Cydaros mewn coed oror,
Cydblannu bedw, gwaith dedwydd,
Cydblethu gweddeiddblu gwŷdd.
Cydadrodd serch â'r ferch fain,
Cydedrych caeau didrain.
"Y Serch Lledrad" (Love Kept Secret), line 23; translation from Dafydd ap Gwilym (ed. and trans. Rachel Bromwich) A Selection of Poems (Harmondsworth, Penguin, [1982] 1985) p. 34.

Love , Life , Girl , Tree

“It was one of those winter days in Los Angeles when the wind has swept away the smog and the air is clear and the light still and everything has the immediacy of a dream. I parked on a street called Overland in the Hollywood Hills. It was lined with white-skinned birch trees. Their nude branches shimmered against the sky. Tattered yellow leaves clogged the gutters and the air was scented with the rainy smell of eucalyptus. There were no cars on the street and the houses were barely visible behind walls and fences and sweeping lawns that had never been trod upon except by gardeners.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Henry Rios series of novels, Goldenboy (1988), p.132

Tree , Housing , Light , Dreams

“'I can repeat the very words you were saying:
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build."”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
Home Burial (1915)