Quotes about root (1409 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“If even a single hair of my beard learns my secret, I will cut my beard from the root.”

Mehmed II (1432–1481) Ottoman sultan

Source: Freely, John (The Grand Turk)

Secret , Learning

“Since the tree is useless on its own without the support of the roots, you must help out your fellow friend to keep humanity alive throughout every generation.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Tree , Support , Help

“The roots of education … are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Graduation , Teachers' Day , Education

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

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Hate , Tree

“I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Feeling , Spring

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Deep , Hell , Tree

“Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Hunger

“The entire universe is God's cosmic motion picture, and that individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation; mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role, rather than with the movie's director, or God.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

God , Suffering , Universe , Change

“Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Flowers , Heart

“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi

“It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

For Men , Tree , Light , Evil

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Money , Thinking , Evil

“The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. If your heart is false, then also the doctor in you is false. If it is fair, then also the doctor is fair.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

Art , Heart

“Some people claim that expectation is the source of all misery, while others claim that attachment is the root cause.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People

“If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Feeling

“A Race without the knowledge of its history is like a tree without roots.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

Though often attributed to Garvey, this statement first appears in Charles Siefert's 1938 pamphlet, The Negro's or Ethiopian's Contribution to Art.
Misattributed

History , Knowledge , Tree

“Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: The Book of Questions

World , Tree , Training

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter One (17 February 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

Heart

“A tree has roots in the soil yet reaches to the sky. It tells us that in order to aspire we need to be grounded and that no matter how high we go it is from our roots that we draw sustenance. It is a reminder to all of us who have had success that we cannot forget where we came from. It signifies that no matter how powerful we become in government or how many awards we receive, our power and strength and our ability to reach our goals depend on the people, those whose work remain unseen, who are the soil out of which we grow, the shoulders on which we stand”

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist

People , Tree , Success , Drawing

“Storms make trees take deeper roots.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

For women , Tree

“What we believed in was responsible majority rule as opposed to irresponsible majority rule, and I stand by that. I think it's important that before you give a person a [right to] vote you ensure that his roots go down [and] that he's part of the whole structure of the country. So I stand by what I've said, and I think we can substantiate the fact that the things we did were to the benefit of the black people of our country more so than anybody else. And I challenge anybody to disagree with that.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Ian Smith - A Bit Of A Rebel, Ian Smith

People , Thinking , Parting , Personality

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong with the world.”

Paul Farmer (1959) American anthropologist

https://www.facebook.com/partnersinhealth/photos/%E2%80%9Cthe-idea-that-some-lives/10151726145651986/

World , Idea

“Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, who wets with tears the mortal wellspring.”

Empedocles book On Nature

fr. 6
On Nature
Source: Aidoneus corresponds to Hades.
Source: Nestis corresponds to Persephone.

Life , Tear

“I think hubris comes from insecurity. Confidence comes in a more rooted sense; part of being confident is being able to say, "I can be really shitty," and to accept that. But also not to crumble under it.”

Bill Skarsgård (1990) Swedish actor

Interview: Bill Skarsgård http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bill-skarsgard-1#_ (June 5, 2017)

Confidence , Thinking , Sense , Parting

“Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches; scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs both.”

Fritjof Capra book The Tao of Physics

Epilogue, p. 306.
The Tao of Physics (1975)

Understanding , Science

“Women should not feel obliged towards any men for eternity. They earned this privilege by gathering berries, digging roots, picking wild rice, and chewing the skin to make it soft for 999 thousand years, while the men were having fun in the open chasing deer and fighting among themselves.”

Vinko Vrbanić (1951)

Women

Women , Men , Feeling , Fight

“I felt like I wanted to make everybody else happy because bars is my thing and a lot of people were rooting for me.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

"Sunisa Lee Says She's 'Going to Delete Twitter' So She Can Focus on Preparing for Beam Final" in People (1 August 2021) https://people.com/sports/tokyo-olympics-sunisa-lee-going-to-delete-twitter-focus-preparing-beam-final/

Happiness , People

“If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible.”

T. Harv Eker (1954) American writer

Source: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Change

“My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Mother's Day , For Mother , Life

“I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

July 1890, page 313
(From Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844) "Essay VI: Nature": "the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.")
John of the Mountains, 1938
Context: It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

Travel , Tree , Sun

“The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

134
Source: Stray Birds (1916)

“Leave behind the passive dreaming of a rose-tinted future. The energy of happiness exists in living today with roots sunk firmly in reality's soil.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Dreams , Reality , Future , Happiness

“Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice
I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“Only those are happy who never think or, rather, who only think about life's bare necessities, and to think about such things means not to think at all. True thinking resembles a demon who muddies the spring of life or a sickness which corrupts its roots. To think all the time, to raise questions, to doubt your own destiny, to feel the weariness of living, to be worn out to the point of exhaustion by thoughts and life, to leave behind you, as symbols of your life's drama, a trail of smoke and blood — all this means you are so unhappy that reflection and thinking appear as a curse causing a violent revulsion in you.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Life , Feeling , Spring , Question

“Since the number of men is large but the earthly realm is not inexhaustible, one man can no longer profit from the labour of twenty. Moderation, contentment, and frugality must become the general morals of mankind. […] The whole earth becomes a garden, and nature has at last completed her day’s work here below, bringing permanent enlightenment, peace, and felicity together with the greatest possible number of men : she has anointed every man as his own judge, priest, and king; has turned the often-ridiculed tale of the golden age, mankind’s favorite idea of old, into a reality by discreetly removing the eternal inequality of wealth, which has been ineffectively combated by all lawgivers and has always has crept back in, and which is the source of the decay of all nations, and the root of servitude, tyranny, and disunity among men, of venality and moral corruption, making it forever impossible through the excessive growth of the human population.”

Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati

Philosophy degree (1783), in: The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrinces of the Illuminati, ed. by Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner, Lewis Masonic 2015, p. 364.

Men , Age , Peace , Idea

“Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Letter to Deborah Hatheway (1741), in Letters and Personal Writings (1998), edited by George S. Claghorn, Vol. 16.

Secret , Peace , Religion , Soul

“What is life? Life is like a big obstacle, put in front of your optical to slow you down, and every time you think you gotten past it, it's gonna come back around and tackle you to the damn ground. What are friends? Friends are people that you think are your friends, but they're really your enemies with secret identities and disguises to hide their true colors, so just when you're close enough to be brothers, they wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain't looking. What is money? Money is what makes a man act funny. Money is the root of all evil. Money'll make them same friends come back around swearing that they was always down. What is life? I'm tired of life!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"'If I Had" (Track 6).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Life , Money , People , Secret

“As I said last year, each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its own people. Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty, that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1=
2010

People , Democracy , History , Country

“All the people that were rooting for me to fail… at the end of the day, tomorrow they have to wake up and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. … They got the same personal problems they had today. And I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things I want to do.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

James not bothered by those rooting for him to fail, Steve Ginsburg, Reuters, June 13, 2011 http://ca.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idCATRE75C0T420110613,
James addressing fans after losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals.

Life , People , Way , Problem

“When I was coming up, trying to get to where I am now, people were so happy for me. They were rooting for me. Now that I'm on top, everyone wants to bring me down. Everyone's trying to tug at me and take my spot… A lot of people say they hate Justin Bieber who haven't even listened to my music. They just hate the idea of me.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Hate , People , Music , Idea

“It may be in our sexuality that we are most easily enslaved, both men and women. It may be there, even as free men and women, that we find freedom hardest to keep. The politics of the flesh are the roots of power.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book Four Ways to Forgiveness

"A Woman's Liberation", p. 158; first published in Asimov's (1995)
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)

Women , Men , Freedom

“As a nation-state, Iran has no problems with anybody. As a vehicle for the Khomeinist ideology it has problems with everybody, starting with the Iranian people. The Khomeinist regime makes no secret of its intense hatred for Iranian culture, which it claims has roots in “the age of ignorance” (jahiliyyah). To admire this regime because of Iranian culture is like admiring Hitler for Goethe and Beethoven and praising Stalin for Pushkin and Tchaikovsky. This regime has executed tens of thousands of Iranians, driven almost 6 million into exile, and deprived the nation of its basic freedoms. It has also killed more Americans, often through surrogates, than al Qaeda did on 9/11. Not a single day has passed without this regime holding some American hostages. Iran as a nation is a solid friend of America. Iran as a vehicle for the Khomeinist revolution is an eternal enemy of “The Great Satan.” The only realistic strategy for the United States would be to help it stop being the Islamic Republic and become Iran again. President Obama’s policy, however, points in the opposite direction. He has made it harder for the Iranian people to regain their human rights.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

What US leaders have never understood about Iran http://nypost.com/2015/07/19/what-us-leaders-have-never-understood-about-iran/, New York Post (July 19, 2015).
New York Post

People , Secret , Age , Problem

“No matter how strong and dedicated a leader may be, he must find root and strength amongst the people. He alone cannot save a nation. He may guide, he may set the tone, he may dedicate himself and risk his life, but only the people may save themselves.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

Address at the launching of the Mabuhay Ang Pilipino Movement, Malacañang (30 November 1972)
1965

Life , People , Strong

“The predicament of our time is that the Rationalists have been at work so long on their project of drawing off the liquid in which our moral ideals were suspended (and pouring it away as worthless) that we are left only with the dry and gritty residue which chokes us as we try to take it down. First, we do our best to destroy parental authority (because of its alleged abuse), then we sentimentally deplore the scarcity of 'good homes', and we end by creating substitutes which complete the work of destruction. And it is for this reason that, among much else that is corrupt and unhealthy, we have the spectacle of a set of sanctimonious, rationalist politicians, preaching an ideology of unselfishness and social service to a population in which they and their predecessors have done their best to destroy the only living root of moral behaviour; and opposed by another set of politicians dabbling with the project of converting us from Rationalism under the inspiration of a fresh rationalization of our political tradition.”

Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) British philosopher

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)

Home , Parent , Time , Drawing

“It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith-as mysterious as faith itself. Like faith, it is ultimately not rooted in logic; it is a change in the climate of the mind.”

George Orwell book A Clergyman's Daughter

A Clergyman's Daughter, Ch. 5

Faith , Change , Loss

“Science is never finished because the human mind only uses a small portion of its capacity, and man's exploration of his world is also limited. If we look at this tree outside whose roots search beneath the pavement for water, or a flower which sends its sweet smell to the pollinating bees, or even our own selves and the inner forces that drive us to act, we can see that we all dance to a mysterious tune, and the piper who plays this melody from an inscrutable distance—whatever name we give him—Creative Force, or God—escapes all book knowledge.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 14

God , Books , World , Search

“Charity is the root of all good works.”
Caritas radix est omnium operum bonorum.

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

179A:5:1
Compare: Radix malorum est cupiditas; "greed is the root of all evil"
Sermons

“I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
: By the known rules of ancient liberty.
The word ancient emphasizes the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison

War , Books , Freedom , Evil

“Radical simply means «grasping things at the root». ”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

“My grandfather ... had raised me with absolute freedom, no inhibitions, no suppressions, and no commandments.Love with freedom—if you have it, you are a king or a queen. That is the real kingdom of God—love with freedom. Love gives you the roots into the earth, and freedom gives you the wings.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Source: Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), p. 25

God , Making love , Love , Freedom

“The intimate sense of self-awareness we experience bubbling up at each moment is rooted in the originating activity of the Universe. We are all of us arising together at the invisible center of the cosmos.” We once thought that we were no bigger than our physical bodies, but now we are discovering that we are deeply connected participants in the continuous co-arising of the entire Universe. Awakening to our larger identity as both unique and inseparably connected with a co- arising Universe transforms feelings of existential separation into experiences of subtle communion as bio-cosmic beings. We are far richer, deeper, more complex, and more alive than we ever thought”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: Cosmology, philosophy and physics

“[...] antisemitism is an irrational thing. The Jews are accused of specific offences (for instance, bad behaviour in food queues) which the person speaking feels strongly about, but it is obvious that these accusations merely rationalise some deep-rooted prejudice.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Antisemitism in Britain (1945)

Personality , Food , Feeling

“Women's deference is rooted not only in their social subordination but also in the substance of their moral concern. Sensitivity to the needs of others and the assumption of responsibility for taking care lead women to attend to voices other than their own and to include in their judgement other points of view.”

Carol Gilligan (1936) American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist

Source: In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development

Women

“Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Faith

“The love of money is the root of all evil."

The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Children About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Don't

Love , Money , Evil

“The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Sylva Sylvarum Century X (1627)
Source: The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon
Context: It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

Men , Memory , Forgetting

“To be radical is to grasp things by the root.”

Karl Marx book Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)
Context: It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself. What proves beyond doubt the radicalism of German theory, and thus its practical energy, is that it begins from the resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man. It ends, therefore, with the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is an abased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!

“If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Beauty , Peaceful , Intelligence , Tree

“I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

--From the poem "Elm", written 19 April 1962”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

Fear

“The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Hell , Tree

“The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Jingo

Source: Jingo

People , Intelligence

“When you are up against a wall, put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall and grow.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Tree

“All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness […] At the root of all our experiences and all our reflections, we find […] a being which immediately recognises itself, […] and which knows its own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from any idea of itself, but through direct contact with that existence. Self-consciousness is the very being of mind in action.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

Idea , Time

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

This appears in Twain's posthumous The Refuge of the Derelicts (1905), but it had already been published by other writers.
The earliest citation found in Google Books is a 1872 article by Richard Bowker: "Our Crime Against Crimes" https://books.google.com/books?id=YZgBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA68&dq=The+lack+of+money+is+the+root+of+all+evil&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWi5DE1crLAhUI3mMKHeSdB0YQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=%22lack%20of%20money%22&f=false, in The Herald of Health, vol. 19 no. 2, New York: Wood & Holbrook, February 1872. The saying is placed within quotation marks, perhaps indicating that it was already well-known.
A precursor is found in an article from 1859 https://books.google.com/books?id=gpdEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA209&dq=The+lack+of+money+is+the+root+of+all+evil&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWi5DE1crLAhUI3mMKHeSdB0YQ6AEINTAD#v=onepage&q=%22lack%20of%20gold%22&f=false: It is very well to repeat, parrot-like, the old axiom that “the love of gold is the root of all evil;” but it is very certain that in truth—the lack of gold is the great incentive to crime.
Disputed

Money , Evil

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Heart , Night

“The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing… love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Love , Feeling , Motivation , Fashion

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer even see it.”

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher

(1998), " On male domination http://mondediplo.com/1998/10/10bourdieu" Le Monde Diplomatique, Oct. 10, 1998

“The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant : The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.
As quoted in Becoming Vegan : The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-based Diet (2000) by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina, p. 261
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 305; also in The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer (1950), p. 179

Thinking , Parting

“Sensuality often hastens the "Growth of Love" so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: The Portable Nietzsche

Love

“The square root of I is I.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Bend Sinister

Source: Bend Sinister

“Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“When I am most deeply rooted, I feel the wildest desire to uproot myself.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Feeling

“No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 3
Context: No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high. Whigs and Tories, Liberal party and Labour party — for what do they battle except their own prestige?

Sense , Rage , Passion , Happiness

“But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

God , Sleep

“Sadness of any sort is also seductive, particularly if it seems deep-rooted, even spiritual, rather than needy or pathetic—it makes people come to you.”

Robert Greene book The Art of Seduction

Source: The Art of Seduction

People , Sadness

“The tree on the mountain takes whatever the weather brings. If it has any choice at all, it is in putting down roots as deeply as possible."---Each New Day”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Mountain , Tree , Weather

“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 (1616–1683) English theologian

Tree

“Yet, no matter how deeply I go down into myself, my God is dark, and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

God , Drink , Silence

“One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Pain , Forgiveness , Silence , Loss

“Fairy Song
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies,—
Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!
‘Mong the blossoms white and red—
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate bough.
See me! ’tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man’s ill.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu—I fly—adieu!
I vanish in the heaven’s blue,—
Adieu, adieu!”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Flowers , Tear , Sleep , Flying

“Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Evil , Despair

“The root of joy is gratefulness… It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

David Steindl-Rast (1926) American theologian

Joy , Gratitude

“Haven't people learned yet that the time of superficial intellectual games is over, that agony is infinitely more important than syllogism, that a cry of despair is more revealing than the most subtle thought, and that tears always have deeper roots than smiles?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

People , Smile , Game , Tear

“In the face of violence that seems intractable and suffering that is so senseless, it is easy to grow cynical, and I think tempting to give in to the notion that peace and security may be beyond our grasp. But I say to all of you here today, especially the young people, do not give into that cynicism. Do not lose the idealism and optimism that is the root of all great change. Don’t ever lose the faith that says, if we want it, if we are willing to work for it, if we stand together, the future can be different; tomorrow can be better.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People , Peace , Faith , Optimism

“Self-knowledge — the bitterest knowledge of all and also the kind we cultivate least: what is the use of catching ourselves out, morning to night, in the act of illusion, pitilessly tracing each act back to its root, and losing case after case before our own tribunal?”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Knowledge , Night

“It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. And contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidate - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice. We have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

God , People , Faith , Perfection

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

Charles Dickens book Hard Times

Bk. I, Ch. 1
Hard Times (1854)

Life , Children , Girl , Boy

“Moreover, every effort should be made under the law to expedite the proceedings of justice in the case of such an awful crime. But it cannot be necessary in order to accomplish this to deprive any citizen of those fundamental rights to be heard in his own defense which are so dear to us all and which lies at the root of our liberty. It certainly ought to be possible by the proper administration of the laws to secure swift vengeance upon the criminal; and the best and immediate efforts of all legislators, judges and citizens should be addressed to securing such reforms in our legal procedure as to leave no vestige of excuse for those misguided men who undertake to reap vengeance through violent methods.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)

Men , Justice , Law , Effort

“Neo-Plasticism has its roots in Cubism. It could just as easy be called the Painting of Real Abstraction. Since the abstract can be expressed by a plastic reality... It achieves what all painting has tried to achieve but has been able to express only in a veiled manner. By their position and their dimension as well as by the importance of given to colour, the coloured planes express in a plastic way only relations and not forms. Neo-Plasticism imparts to these relations an aesthetic balance and thereby expresses universal harmony... For the moment what art had discovered must still be limited to art itself. Our environment cannot yet be realized as a creation of pure harmony. Art today is at the very point formerly occupied by religion. In its deepest meaning art was the transposition of the natural [into another plane]; in practice it always sought to achieve harmony between man and untransposed nature. Generally speaking, so do Theosophy and Anthroposophy, although these already possessed the original symbol of balance. And this is why they never were able to achieve equivalent relations, that is to say true harmony.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in Mondrian's letter to Rudolf Steiner, c. 1921-23; as cited in Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co 1964, p. 83-85
1920's

Religion , Art , Way , Nature

“The overdevelopment of the maternal instinct is identical with that well-known image of the mother which has been glorified in all ages and all tongues. This is the motherlove which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends. Intimately known and yet strange like Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like fate, 'oyous and untiring giver of life-mater dolorosa and mute implacable portal that closes upon the dead. Mother is motherlove, my experience and my secret. Why risk saying too much, too much that is false and inadequate and beside the point, about that human being who was our mother, the accidental carrier of that great experience which includes herself and myself and all mankind, and indeed the whole of created nature, the experience of life whose children we are? The attempt to say these things has always been made, and probably always will be; but a sensitive person cannot in all fairness load that enormous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven and hell, on to the shoulders of one frail and fallible human being-so deserving of love, indulgence, understanding, and forgiveness-who was our mother. He knows that the mother carries for us that inborn image of the mater nature and mater spiritualis, of the totality of life of which we are a small and helpless part.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

"Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious P.172

Love , Life , Fate , Children

“Of course it's tempting to close one's eyes to history, and instead speculate about the roots of war in some possible animal instinct: as if, like the tiger, we still had to kill to live, or, like the robin redbreast, to defend a nesting territory. But war, organized war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft. And that form of theft began 10,000 years ago when the harvesters of wheat accumulated a surplus and the nomads rose out of the desert to rob them of what they themselves could not provide. The evidence for that, we saw, in the walled city of Jericho and its prehistoric tower… That is the beginning of war.”

Jacob Bronowski The Ascent of Man

Episode 2: "The Harvest of the Seasons"
The Ascent of Man (1973)

War , History , Animals

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaf and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ in the poplar trees.”

Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter

"Strange Fruit" (1939). Though Holiday's renditions made this anti-lynching song famous, it was written by Abel Meeropol (using his pseudonym "Lewis Allen").
Misattributed

Tree

“Democracy will win -- because a government’s legitimacy can only come from citizens; because in this age of information and empowerment, people want more control over their lives, not less; and because, more than any other form of government ever devised, only democracy, rooted in the sanctity of the individual, can deliver real progress.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People , Age , Democracy

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to James Madison http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-james-madison-12/ (2 March 1788)
1780s

“I believe I am not interested to know whether Vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. To know that the results are profitable to the race would not remove my hostility to it. The pains which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity towards it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further. It is so distinctly a matter of feeling with me, and is so strong and so deeply-rooted in my make and constitution, that I am sure I could not even see a vivisector vivisected with anything more than a sort of qualified satisfaction.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter https://books.google.it/books?id=-rgnCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT370 to Sidney G. Trist, Editor of the Animals' Friend Magazine, in his capacity as Secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society (26 May 1899), in Mark Twain's Notebooks, ed. Carlo De Vito (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2015)

Pain , Hostility , Feeling , Strong

“Intoxicated mentally by the messianic dream of a Greater Israel which will finally achieve the expansionist dreams of the most radical Zionism; contaminated by the monstrous and rooted 'certitude' that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological and pathologically exclusivist racism are justified; educated and trained in the idea that any suffering that has been inflicted, or is being inflicted, or will be inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, will always be inferior to that which they themselves suffered in the Holocaust, the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Intoxicados mentalmente pela idéia messiânica de um Grande Israel que torne por fim realidade os sonhos expansionistas do sionismo mais radical, contaminados pela monstruosa e arraigada "certeza" de que neste mundo catastrófico e absurdo existe um povo eleito por Deus e, portanto, estão automaticamente justificadas e autorizadas, em nome dos horrores do passado e dos medos de hoje, todas as ações nascidas de um racismo obsessivo, psicológica e patologicamente exclusivista, educados e formados na idéia de que qualquer sofrimento que tenham infligido, inflijam ou venham a infligir aos demais, em especial aos palestinos, sempre será inferior ao que eles padeceram no Holocausto, os judeus arranham sem cessar sua própria ferida para que não deixe de sangrar, para torná-la incurável, e mostram-na ao mundo como se fosse uma bandeira.
Interview with El País (2002); cited in Princípios (Editora Anita Garibaldi, 2002), p. 88; English translation taken from Phillips The World Turned Upside Down (2010), p. 207.

God , People , World , Education

“The deep conviction... that nothing good for Germany or the world can come out of the present German regime, has made me avoid the country in whose spiritual tradition I am more deeply rooted than are those who for three years have been trying to find courage enough to declare before the world that I am not a German. And I feel to the bottom of my heart that I have done right in the eyes of my contemporaries and of posterity.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Responding to anti-semitic propaganda and to criticisms of German writers living in exile during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany, as quoted in "Homage to Thomas Mann" in The New Republic (1 April 1936) http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114269/thomas-mann-stands-anti-semitism-stacks

World , Feeling , Courage , Heart

“There was one picture in particular which bothered him. It had begun with a leaf caught in the wind, and it became a tree; and the tree grew, sending out innumerable branches, and thrusting out the most fantastic roots.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien book Leaf by Niggle

Leaf by Niggle (1945)

Tree