Trees


Quotes for Those that Love
Gardens, Gardening and the Green Way

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

 

 

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Tree Quotes I         Tree Quotes II
Tree Quotes III      Tree Quotes IV

Links   ...  References

 

 


Quotes I


 

 

 

Being thus prepared for us in all ways, and made beautiful, and good for food, and for building,
and for instruments of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless affection and
admiration from us, becomes, in proportion to their obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our
being in right temper of mind and way of life; so that no one can be far wrong in either who
loves trees enough, and everyone is assuredly wrong in both who does not love them,
if his life has brought them in his way.
-   John Ruskin, 1819-1900, Modern Painters VI


 

 

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a
green thing that stands in the way.  Some see Nature all ridicule and
deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all.  But to the eyes of the
man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
-  William Blake, 1799, The Letters 

 

 

 

Flowers - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

 

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow
to keep an appointment with a beech-tree,
or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
-  Henry David Thoreau,  1817 - 1862

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Around a flowering tree, one finds many insects.
-  Proverb from Guinea

 

 

 

 

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and
melodious thoughts descend upon me?
-  Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

 

 

 

 

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!"
-   Joseph Campbell

 

 

 

Though a tree grows so high, the falling leaves return to the root.
Malay proverb

 

 

 

 

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.
- Chinese proverb

 

 

 

 

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way
they have to live than other things do.
-   Willa Cather (1873-1947), O Pioneers 1913

 

 

 

 

Do not be afraid to go out on a limb ... That's where the fruit is.
-   Anonymous

 

 

 

 

Sometimes Thou may'st walk in Groves,
which being full of Majestie will much advance the Soul.
-  Thomas Vaughan,  Anima Magica Abscondita

 

 

 

 

 

 

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?
We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
-   Jack Handey

 

 

 

 

Of the infinite variety of fruits which spring from the bosom of the earth,
the trees of the wood are the greatest in dignity.
-  Susan Fenimore Cooper

 

 

 

 

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
-   Ogden Nash, Song of the Open Road, 1933

 

 

 

 

The groves were God's first temples.
-  William Cullen Bryant, A Forest Hymn

 

 

 

 

From a fallen tree, all make kindling.
-   Spanish proverb

 

 

Green Way Blog

 

 

 

 

Gardening and Spirituality

 

 

 

 

If a tree dies, plant another in its place.
-   Linnaeus

 

 

 

A tree falls the way it leans.
Bulgarian Proverb

 

 

 

People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do.  They cherish every one. 
It is useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in
someone's backyard ....   You are talking about a personal asset, a friend,
a monument, not about board feet of lumber.
-   Roger Swain

 

 

 

 

 And see the peaceful trees extend
their myriad leaves in leisured dance—
they bear the weight of sky and cloud
upon the fountain of their veins.
-   Kathleen Raine, Envoi

 


 

Oak trees come out of acorns, no matter how unlikely that seems.  An acorn is just a tree's
way back into the ground.  For another try.  Another trip through.   One life for another.
-   Shirley Ann Grau

 

 

 

 

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

 

 

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance.
-   William Butler Yeats, Among School Children

 

 

 

A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots,
whose flower and fruitage is the world.
-  Ralph W. Emerson,  1803 - 1882

 

 

 

He that planteth a tree is a servant of God, he
provideth a kindness for many generations, and
faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.
-   Henry Van Dyke

 

 

 

There is, I conceive, scarcely any tree that may not be advantageously
used in the various combinations of form and color.
-   Gilpin

 

 

 

Months and Seasons
Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Lore,
Myths, Holidays, Celebrations,
Links, Celebrations, Facts,
Resources, Gardening Chores
 
Winter Spring Summer Autumn
January April July October
February May August November
March June September December 

 

 

 

Alone with myself
The trees bend to caress me
The shade hugs my heart
-   Candy Polgar


 

 


Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit.
-   Khalil Gibran

 

 

 

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;
a grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak.
-   James Russell Lowell

 

 

 

 

Happy is the man ... his delights is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a
tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in
its season, and its leaf does not wither.
-   Psalms 1: 1-3

 

 

 

 

When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than
the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined
branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of
the place, and the awful gloom of this doomed cavern then strike
you with the presence of a deity?
-   Seneca

 

 

 

 

Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first
person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable
type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing. It is not
customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total.
-   Rada and Forsyth, Machine Learning

 

 

 

 

                                       What kind of times are they, when
                                       A talk about trees is almost a crime
                                       Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
                                                                   -    Bertolt Brecht, To Those Born Later

 

 

 

 

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the ages can.
-  William Wordsworth, The Tables Turned

 

 

 

Fruits and Nuts - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 


 

A virgin forest is where the hand of man has never set foot.
-  Author Unknown

 

 

 

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Other holidays repose on the past.
Arbor Day proposes the future.
-   J. Sterling Morton

 

 

 

Larger and finer meanings are read into the older legends of the plants, and the
universality of certain myths is expressed in the concurrence of ideas in the
beginnings of the great religions.   One of the first figures in the leading cosmologies
is a tree of life guarded by a serpent.  In the Judaic faith this was the tree in the
garden of Eden; the Scandinavians made it an ash, Ygdrasil;  Christians usually
specify the tree as an apple, Hindus as a soma, Persians as a homa, Cambodians
as a talok; this early treee is the vine of Bacchus, the snake-entwined caduceus of
Mercury, the twining creeper of the Eddas, the bohidruma of Buddha, the fig of
Isaiah, the tree of Aesculapius with the serpent around his trunk. 
-   Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits and Plants, 1911

 

 

 

 

 

That each day I may walk unceasingly on the banks of my water, that my
soul may repose on the branches of the trees which I planted, that I may
refresh myself under the shadow of my sycomore.
-  Egyptian tomb inscription, circa 1400 BCE
Sycomore trees were held to be sacred in ancient Egypt and are the first trees represented in ancient art.

 

 

 

 

 

The sycamore, also, was sacred.   Peasants gather around them
in rituals.  In the Land of the Dead there was a sycamore in whose
branches the goddess Hathor lived; she leaned out of it giving
sustenance and water to deceased souls.  In Memphis, Hathor's

epithet was Lady of the Sycamore.
-  Larry Gates,  Egyptian Nature Mysticism

 

 

 

 

That tree whose leaves are trembling:
is yearning for something. 
That tree so lovely to see acts as if it wants to flower:
it is yearning for something.
-  Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1395 

 

 

 

 

And you, how old are you?
I asked the maple tree:
While opening one hand,
- he started blushing.
-   Georges Bonneau, Le Sensibilite Japonaise, 1935
Dodoitsu

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes for Gardeners

Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes Arranged by Over 130 Topics
Many of the Topics also have Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

 

 

In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up,
enough to be stolen,  and enough to rot on the ground.
-   James Boswell

 

 

 

The patient.  -  The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait:  and both without
impatience:  - they give no thought to the little people beneath them
devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.
-  Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow, # 176. 

 

 

 

 

 

There are two trees, each yielding its own fruit.  One of them is negative....it grows from lack of
self-worth and its fruits are fear, anger, envy, bitterness, sorrow  - and any other negative emotion.
Then there is the tree of positive emotions.  Its nutrients include self-forgiveness and a correct self
concept.  Its fruits are love, joy, acceptance, self-esteem, faith, peace...and other uplifting emotions.
Kathi's Garden

 

 

 

 

 

Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to
emanate a sense of permanence.  And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky. 
For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about
them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn
some secret vital to our own lives; or even, more specifically, some secret vital to
our real, our lasting and spiritual existence.
-  Kim Taplin,  Tongues in Trees, 1989, p. 14. 

 

 

 

 

 

As I age
in the world it will rise and spread,
and be for this place horizon
and orison, the voice of its winds.
I have made myself a dream to dream
of its rising, that has gentled my nights.
Let me desire and wish well the life
these trees may live when I
no longer rise in the mornings
to be pleased with the green of them
shining, and their shadows on the ground,
and the sound of the wind in them.

-   Wendell Berry, Planting Trees

 

 

 

 

Trees: Lore, Myths, Magick, Legends, Esoterica

 

 

 

 

A tree does not move unless there is wind.
- Afghan Proverb

 

 

 

 

 

This solitary Tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed.
-   William Wordsworth, Yardley Oak

John Clare, in his poem To a Fallen Elm,
"makes the tree a selfmark as well as a landmark."
-  Tim Fulford, The Politics of Trees

 

 

 

 

 



Each time these blossoms open I recall the friend who gave me the saplings,
And the times we used to stop to drink beneath his trees;
But those springs of twenty years ago are like a dream,
And the wine cups of those days are tea-bowls now.
-   Kisei Reigen

 

 

 

 

 

Time-honored, beautiful, solemn and wise.
Noble, sacred and ancient
Trees reach the highest heavens and penetrate the deepest secrets of the earth.
Trees are the largest living beings on this planet.
Trees are in communion with the spiritual and the material.
Trees guard the forests and the sanctified places that must not be spoiled.
Trees watch over us and provide us with what we need to live on this planet.
Trees provide a focal point for meditation, enlightenment, guidance and inspiration.
Trees have a soul and a spirit.
-   Tree Magick by Lavenderwater


 

 

 

 

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring
storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious
enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees
are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is
throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings,
while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No
wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more
they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the
farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.
-   John Muir

 

 

 

 

To be able to walk under the branches of a tree that you have planted is really to feel you have
arrived with your garden.  So far we are on the way: we can now stand beside ours.
-  Mirabel Osler

 

 

 

 

I was raised by the song
Of the murmuring grove
And loving I learned
Among Flowers.
-   Friedrich Holderlin

 

 

 

 

 

I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
Dr. Suess

 

 

 

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Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees,
then names the streets after them.
-  Bill Vaughan

 

 

 

 

Tree of Liberty:   A tree set up by the people, hung with flags and devices, and crowned
with a cap of liberty.  The Americans of the United States planted poplars and other trees
during the war of independence, “as symbols of growing freedom.”  The Jacobins in Paris
planted their first tree of liberty in 1790.  The symbols used in France to decorate their trees
of liberty were tricoloured ribbons, circles to indicate unity, triangles to signify equality,
and a cap of liberty.  Trees of liberty were planted by the Italians in the revolution of 1848.
-  E. Cobham Brewer, The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1894

 

 

 

 

 

       Blue sky, golden cloud ...
       What a feeling of forever!
The languid tree-tops
        lithely remain mysterious.
     A sign, you would think.
                                -    Alberto Blanco, First Star

 

 

 

 

 

A monk asked Joshu, "What is the meaning of Bodidharma's coming to China?"  Joshu said,
    "The oak tree in the garden."
A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the living meaning of Zen?."   Zhaozhou said,
    "The cypress tree in the yard."

-  Case 37 from the Mumonkan (Wumenguan), A Traditional Collection of Zen Koan
'Joshu, Chao-chou, Zhaozhou' are different spellings of the name of a Chinese Chan (Zen) Teacher

 

 

 


 

.... Stand and look upon the wood:
they behold the high tops of the cedar,
The entrance to the wood,
Where Humbaba goes in on lofty tread.
The ways are straight, and the path is wrought fair.
They see the cedar mount, the dwellings of gods, the sanctuary of the Irnim.

-  The Epic of Gilgamesh

 

 

 

 

 

Green Way Blog by Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu:  "I have a big stinktree in my garden.   The trunk is so bent and knotty that nobody can get a good straight plank out of it.  The branches are so crooked you can't cut them up in any way that makes sense.  There it stands beside the road and no carpenter will even look at it.   Such is your teaching, Chuang - big and useless."
Chuang Tzu replied: "Have you ever watched the wildcat crouching, watching its prey?   This way it leaps, and that way,
high and low, and at last - it lands in the trap.  Have you ever seen the yak?   It is great as a thundercloud, standing in his might.
Big?  Sure.  But, he can't catch mice!  So for your big tree.  No use?   Then plant it in the wasteland - in emptiness.  Walk idly around it and rest under it's shadow.  No axe or saw prepares its end.  No one will ever cut it down.   Useless?  You should worry!.
-  Chuang Tzu, The Useless Tree, circa 200 B.C..  

 

 

 

 

 

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath,
no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.
-  George Bernard Shaw

 

 

 

 

 

Tall thriving Trees confessed the fruitful Mold:
The reddening Apple ripens here to Gold,
Here the blue Fig with luscious Juice overflows,
With deeper Red the full Pomegranate glows,
The Branch here bends beneath the weighty Pear,
and verdant Olives flourish round the Year.
-   Homer

 

 

 

 

 

Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing
but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger,
fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs.  Our faith
gives us knowledge of something better:
that we can become oak trees.
-   E.F. Schumacher

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. 
Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
Hal Borland,  Countryman: A Summary of Belief

 

 

 

 

Trees are the best monuments that a man can erect to his own memory. 
They speak his praises without flattery, and they are
blessings to children yet unborn.
-   Lord Orrery, 1749

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I reflect that one man, armed only with his own physical and moral resources, was able to cause
this land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland, I am convinced that in spite of everything, humanity is
admirable. But when I compute the unfailing greatness of spirit and the tenacity of benevolence that it
must have taken to achieve this result, I am taken with an immense respect for that old and unlearned
peasant who was able to complete a work worthy of God.

-  Jean Giono,  The Man Who Planted Trees  

A heartwarming story about the impact of one man, Elzeard Bouffier, who planted trees from 1900-1946,
in the area where the Alps thrust down into Provence, France.

 

 

 

 

 

They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers.
-   James G. Watt

 

 

 

 

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
-  Robert Frost

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, 
The holy tree is growing there; 
From joy the holy branches start, 
And all the trembling flowers they bear. 
The changing colours of its fruit 
Have dowered the stars with metry light; 
The surety of its hidden root 
Has planted quiet in the night; 
The shaking of its leafy head 
Has given the waves their melody, 
And made my lips and music wed, 
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
-  William Butler Yeats, The Two Trees

 

 

 

 

 

Trees - Quotes for Gardeners  Part III

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the
running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
-   William Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

 

Arbol que crece torsido jamas su tronco se enderesa.
A tree that grows crooked will never straighten its trunk.

 

 

 

 

 

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
-   A Welsh proverb

 

 

 

 

 

Trees serve as homes for visiting devas who do not manifest in earthly bodies,
but live in the fibers of the trunks and larger branches of the trees,  feed from
the leaves and communicate through the tree itself.  Some are permanently
stationed as guardians of sacred places.
-   Hindu Deva Shastra, verse 117,   Nature Devas

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tree never hits an automobile except in self-defense.
-  Author Unknown

 

 

 

 

 

A garden without trees scarcely deserves to be called a garden.
-   Henry Ellacombe

 

 

 

 

 

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
-   Kahlil Gibran

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm ... we chop down trees and chop up wood.

 

 

Green Way Blog

 

 

 

                                          -- Say it, no ideas but in things --
                                          nothing but the blank faces of the houses
                                          and cylindrical trees
                                          bent, forked by preconception and accident --
                                          split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained --
                                          secret -- into the body of the light!
                                                                -    William Carlos Williams, Patterson, 1946, Book I, p. 7

 

 

 

 

 

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.
-  Pablo Neruda

 

 

 

 

Someone's sitting in the shade today because
someone planted a tree a long time ago.
-   Warren Buffett

 

 

 

 

 

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds.
A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy
reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
-   Basil

 

 

 

 

Annihilating all that's made,
To a green thought in a green shade.
-  Andrew Marvell

 

 

 

 

Verde que te quiero verde.   Verde viento.  Verde ramas.
Green I love you green.  Green Wind.  Green branches.
-  Federico Garcia Lorca, 1899-1936

 

 

 

 

 

The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

 

 

 

Evolution did not intend trees to grow singly.  Far more than ourselves they
are social creatures, and no more natural as isolated specimens than man
is as a marooned sailor or hermit.
-   John Fowles

 

 

 

 

 

We have nothing to fear and a great deal to learn
from trees, that vigorous and pacific tribe which
without stint produces strengthening essences for
us, soothing balms, and in whose gracious company
we spend so many cool, silent and intimate hours.
-   Marcel Proust, Pleasures and Regrets, 1896

 

 

 

 

 

All it has experienced, tasted, suffered:
The course of years, generations of animals,
Oppression, recovery, friendship of sun and - Wind
Will pour forth each day in the song
Of its rustling foliage, in the friendly
Gesture of its gently swaying crown,
In the delicate sweet scent of resinous
Sap moistening the sleep-glued buds,
And the eternal game of lights and
Shadows it plays with itself, content.
-   Herman Hesse, 1877 - 1962

 

 

 

 

Many a genius has been slow of growth.   Oaks that flourish for a
thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.
-  George H. Lewis,  1817 - 1878 

 

 

 

Good timber does not grow with ease;
the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.
-  J. Willard Marriott

 

 

 

 

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
-  Abraham Lincoln

 

 

 

 

The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree;
they are worshipped precisely because they are hierophanies,
because they show something that is no longer stone or tree but sacred,
the ganz andere or 'wholly other.'
-  Mircea Eliade,  Myths, Dreams and Mysteries

 

 

 

 

Work - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

 

 

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or
challenge the ideology of a violet.
-   Hal Borland (1908-1978), Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

 

 

 

 

As an instrument of planetary home repair,
it is hard to imagine anything as safe as a tree.
-    Jonathan Weiner

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.
The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars,
the trail of the sun,
the strength of fire,
and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.

-   Chief Dan George

 

 

 

 

He who plants a tree, plants a hope.
-  Lucy Larcom, Plant a Tree

 

 

 

Cloud Hands: Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

 

 

 

 

Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
-  General George P. Morris

 

 

 

 

A society grows great when old men plant trees
whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
Greek Proverb

 

 

 

 

Trees are sanctuaries.  Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them,
can learn the truth.  They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred
by particulars, the ancient law of life.
-   Hermann Hesse,  Wandering

 

 

 

 

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My lilac trees are old and tall;
I cannot reach their bloom at all.
They send their perfume over trees
And roof and streets, to find the bees.
-   Lousie Driscoll,  1875 - 1957,  My Garden Is a Pleasant Place

 

 

 

 

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
William Blake, Proverbs of Hell, 1790

 

 

 

A man does not plant a tree for himself, he plants it for posterity.
-  Alexander Smith

 

 

 

And so she comes to dream herself the tree,
The wind possessing her, weaving her young veins,
Holding her to the sky and its quick blue,
Drowning the fever of her hands in sunlight.
She has no memory, nor fear, nor hope
Beyond the grass and shadows at her feet.
Hart Crane, Abstract Garden, 1932

And so she turns inward on herself
The breeze caressing her, brushing her smooth skin,
Her bright face gazing still. The wind
Whispering darkly secrets of her past.
She has no thought nor cares, nor words
Except to gently brush away the petals falling on her heart.
-  Ken Morrill, Under the Tree

 

 

 

 

In the religion of the Medes and Persians the cult of trees plays an important part,
and with them, as with Assyrians, the symbol of eternal life was a tree with a stream
at its roots.  Another object of veneration was the sacred miracle tree, which
within itself contained the seeds of all.
-  M. L. Gothein, A History of Garden Art, 1928

 

 

 

 

May my life be like a great hospitable tree,
and may weary wanderers find in me a rest.
-   John Henry Jowett

 

 

 

 

 

I have always found thick woods a little intimidating, for they are so secret
and enclosed.  You may seem alone but you are not, for there are always
eyes watching you.  All the wildlife of the woods, the insects, birds, and
animals, are well aware of your presence no matter how softly you may
tread, and they follow your every move although you cannot see them.
-  Thalassa Cruso

 

 

 

 

The Pacific Yew can be cut down and processed to produce a potent
chemical, taxol, which offers some promise of curing certain forms of

lung, breast and ovarian cancer in patients who would otherwise
quickly die...  It seems an easy choice -- sacrifice the tree for a human
life -- until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for
each patient treated.
-   Al Gore

 

 

 

 

Earth - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

 

Trees enrich our lives throughout the year. They reassure us with the rustle of
their leaves, give us shade to soothe our overheated bodies and they bring
delight to us when we watch birds nest in their boughs. However, it is
only during the fall that they wave flamboyant foliage that seems
to demand our attention.
-   Blue Ridge Parkway: A Guide to Trees

 

 

 

 

My heart is glad, my heart is high
With sudden ecstasy;
I have given back, before I die,
Some thanks for every lovely tree
That dead men grew for me.
-   V. H. Friedlaender

 

 

 

 

The woods are full of faeries!
The trees are all alive;

The river overflows with them,
See how they dip and dive!

What funny little fellows!
What dainty little dears!

They dance and leap, and prance and peep,
And utter fairy cheers!

-  Anonymous

 

 

 

 

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider,
every green tree is far more glorious
than if it were made of gold and silver.
-   Martin Luther

 

 

 

 

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds
of trees for food.  Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but
they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them
flows from the sanctuary.  Their fruit will be for food, and their
leaves for healing.
-   Ezekiel 47:12

 

 

 

 

Sensing us, the trees tremble in their sleep,
The living leaves recoil before our fires,
Baring to us war-charred and broken branches,
And seeing theirs, we for our own destruction weep.
-   Kathleen Raine, London Trees

 

 

 

 

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden,
but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.
-   Minnie Aumonier

 

 

 

 

There once was a man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

 

 

 

 

 

Among archetypal images, the Sacred Tree is one of the most widely know
symbols on Earth.  There are few cultures in which the Sacred Tree does
not figure: as an image of the cosmos, as a dwelling place of gods or spirits,
as a medium of prophecy and knowledge, and as an agent of metamorphoses
when the tree is transformed into human or divine form or when it bears
a divine or human image as its fruit or flowers.
-  Christopher and Tricia McDowell, The Sanctuary Garden, 1998, p 128

 

 

 

 

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. 
-   Abraham Lincoln

 

 

 

 

Here may I live what life I please,
Married and buried out of sight,
- Married to pleasure and buried to pain, -
Hidden away amongst scenes like these,
Under the fans of the chestnut trees;
Living my child-life over again,
With the further hope of a fallen delight,
Blithe as the birds and wise as the bees.
-   Violet Fane,  In Green Old Gardens, 1843 - 1905

 

 

 

 

As the poet said, "only God can make a tree,"
probably because it's so hard to figure out
how to get the bark on.
-   Woody Allen

 

 

 

 

 

I think that I shall never see 
A poem lovely as a tree. 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; 

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in summer wear 
A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me, 
But only God can make a tree."

-  Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918, Trees

 

 

Green Way Blog

 

 

 

 

What did the tree learn from the earth
to be able to talk with the sky?
-  Pablo Neruda

 

 

 

Next Page:  Trees - Quotes for Gardeners, Part II

 

 

 

 

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More Quotes

for

Gardeners



Trees II

 

Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul

Flowers

Weeds and Weeding

Simplicity and the Simple Life


Pulling Onions
Quips and Observations by Michael P. Garofalo

The Essence of Gardening

Working in the Garden

Garden Digest Links

 

Haiku Poetry  -  Links and References

Cliches for Gardeners and Farmers


The History of Gardening Timeline
From Ancient Times to the 20th Century


Short Poems and Haiku by Michael P. Garofalo

Seeing and Vision

Beauty in the Garden


Seasons and Time

Zen Poetry

Comments about this Web Site

Jokes, Riddles and Humor


Tai Chi Chuan and Chi Kung

 

 

Quotes for Gardeners

Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 130 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

The Spirit of Gardening


 

 

 




Distributed on the Internet by Green Way Research

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

 

I Welcome Your Comments, Ideas, Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California


A Short Biography of Mike Garofalo

 

Trees I  -  Quotes for Gardeners


This document was first distributed on the Internet on January 1, 1999.

 


The Spirit of Gardening

Haiku Poetry

Cloud Hands: Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

Quotes for Gardeners

The History of Gardening Timeline

Trees II