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Tree Quotes

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Tree Quotes

“I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”

“The value of the things is not in themselves autonomously, but that God made them, and thus they deserve to be treated with high respect. The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it). This is wrong because it is not true. When you drive the axe into the tree when you need firewood, you are not cutting down a person; you are cutting down a tree. But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize God made it and it deserves respect because He made is as a tree.”

“I was a few miles south of Louisville when I planned my journey. I spread out my map under a tree and made up my mind to go through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia to Florida, thence to Cuba, thence to some part of South America; but it will be only a hasty walk. I am thankful, however, for so much.”

“The groves and thickets of smaller trees are full of blooming evergreen vines. These vines are not arranged in separate groups, or in delicate wreaths, but in bossy walls and heavy, mound-like heaps and banks. Am made to feel that I am now in a strange land. I know hardly any of the plants, but few of the birds, and I am unable to see the country for the solemn, dark, mysterious cypress woods which cover everything.”

“Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and... rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.”

“We [The Replacements] never made any money on tour. None of us came out of the school of economics. We took it for granted that a rock and roll band gets ripped off. We've tried to shake that tree a couple of times, but what can we do? You look back, when you're sort of idle in your middle years, and think, we should have made some money.”

“I'm thinking of writing a children's story about a leaf on a tree who arrogantly insists he's a self-made, independent leaf. Then one day a fierce wind blows him off his branch and to the ground below. As his life slowly ebbs away, he looks up at the magnificent old tree that had been his home and realizes that he had never been on his own. His entire life he had been part of something bigger and more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. In a blinding flash, he awakens from the delusion of self. Then an arrogant, self-centered kid rakes him up and bags him.”

“In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore.”

“It may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us-the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star-we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.”

“Planners and designers should encourage as much diversity in human habitats as they find in animal habitats. It is not possible to resolve all conflicts or to gain all ends. Choices have to be made. Different aspects of the public good should be stressed in different places. To achieve variety in land use patterns, there should also be a variety of relationships between the professions, not an institutionalized decision-making tree. Relationships between the constructive professions should, therefore, be deconstructed.”

“The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind.”

“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.”

“A tree is made to live in peace in the color of day and in friendship with the sun, the wind and the rain. Its roots plunge in thefat fermentation of the soil, sucking in its elemental humors, its fortifying juices. Trees always seem lost in a great tranquil dream. The dark rising sap makes them groan in the warm afternoons. A tree is a living being that knows the course of the clouds and presses the storms because it is full of birds' nests.”

“So let us raise a cheer ... for the insatiable spirit of Man eager for all new things! What a tale could have been written by that far off man who first saw a tree trunk roll and made a wheel and cart and harnessed in his mare and cracked his whip and drove away to disappear beyond the hill! Or that first man who made a boat and raised a sail and disappeared hull down to unknown shores!”

“A horror novel should reveal to you that you are falling apart. That there are ways your imagination can be made different. Can threaten what you think is. You should be holding onto that tree or rock screaming. Or laughing. Not at absurdity, either: absurdism is just a bourgeois and reactionary nostalgia for good, stable meaning.”

“I think as soon as I figured out - and this must have been incredibly young - that comic books were made by humans, rather than being natural phenomenon likes trees or rocks, I just wanted to be one of the people who did that. So I was copying all kinds of cartoons that I was reading, comic books, and eventually learned how to draw cartoon books step-by-step and just, I don't know, I'm not an especially quick learner, but I sure was a dedicated one.”

“I have a strong antipathy to everything connected with gardens, gardening and gardeners. . . . Gardening seems to me a kind of admission of defeat. . . . Man was made for better things than pruning his rose trees. The state of mind of the confirmed gardener seems to me as reprehensible as that of the confirmed alcoholic. Both have capitulated to the world. Both have become lotus eaters and drifters.”

“But look at Avatar (2009), one of the most globally viewed pieces of entertainment to have ever been made - the central emotional event of the whole movie was a tree being cut down. And the entire movie, essentially, is saying, "If we let the military industrial complex trash the place that we're living in, we will have committed an epic crime."”

“I require silence to write the way an apple tree requires winter to make fruit. Being with people is intimate and joyous, but at some point, I'll wander off by myself. The paradox is that what began in childhood as an act of necessary solitude has led me straight to a life with others, in which I fly to China or Lithuania or northern Minnesota to read my poems and talk with other people who love language made into a lathe on which a life can be tuned and be turned.”

“Humans became easy prey when they moved from the forest to the savanna, which deprived them of the option of climbing trees to flee predators. This shift made it necessary for the men to actively protect the women and their babies. Only as a result of this protection were women able to give birth in shorter intervals, perhaps once every two or three years. This meant that they could produce offspring about twice as frequently as apes. I would be willing to bet that this rapid reproduction is one of the reasons why we dominate the world today, and not the apes.”

“My first real kiss came when I was 10, and it was in an acting class. I had to do a scene from a movie where someone gets kissed under a tree, and I did not want to do it! But my acting partner wanted me to feel comfortable, so he bought a picnic basket with all these snacks. He made such an effort - and it was cute.”

“Since the white man says he came from the evolution of animals, well, maybe the black man didn't. The white man has made so many errors in the handling of people that maybe he did come from a gorilla or a fish and crawl up on the sand and then into the trees. Of course, evolution doesn't take God into consideration. I don't think people learned to do all the things they do through evolution.”

“What a difference that extra 120 ppm has made for plants, and for animals and humans that depend on them. The more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the more it is absorbed by plants of every description - - and the faster and better they grow, even under adverse conditions like limited water, extremely hot air temperatures, or infestations of insects, weeds and other pests. As trees, grasses, algae and crops grow more rapidly and become healthier and more robust, animals and humans enjoy better nutrition on a planet that is greener and greener.”

“This sounds cheesy but when I would get in discussions with people about religion or spirituality, a lot of people would say, "I believe God is nature, there's God in that tree" - and I would think, What the hell are they on about? But it was about four or five years ago in Hawaii where that all made sense to me and I got it all, and I felt God was in the trees and in the grass and the flowers, and I completely understood.”

“Every year my mom takes her 5th grade class on an outdoor education trip, and ever since I was born, I came with her. One thing I remember the most was this long, old rickety bridge held by two redwood trees. In order to get to the camp fire, you had to cross it. Each time I went across I made my brother carry me on his shoulders. It freaked me out sooooo much, even a little now when I think about it.”

“Maybe the American Dream is too rich for us now in the U.S. Maybe we're losing it because we are not like our Swedish grandmother who came across the plains, hacked down the trees, and took the Spanish words she encountered and made them hers. Now her great-great-grandchildren sit terrified, wondering what to do with all these Mexicans. The American Dream is an impossible affirmation of possibility. And maybe native-born Americans don't have it anymore. Maybe it has run through their fingers.”

“Marijuana was made illegal because of William Randolph Hearst, the big newspaper guy. He owned thousands of acres of timberland and he didn't want hemp to be used for paper, he wanted to force everyone to buy his trees. And that's why he was the one that spearheaded making it illegal in Washington. Always follow the money, it's done for money purposes.”