Tree Planting Quotes

Forest is forest. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants the friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high, he plants a home to heaven anigh.
For song and mother-croon of bird, in hushed and happy twilight heard -
The treble of heaven's harmony.
These things he plants who plants a tree. ~ Henry Cuyler Bunner

Hugging a tree, understanding the language of trees and sending loving kindness to trees will make you rich. Because it connects you to the source - the source of abundance. ~ Amit Ray

I'm planting a tree to remind me to be open and kindhearted. ~ Andrea Koehle Jones

We kept our fingers crossed and eagerly scanned the newspapers and magazines for news of an engagement between Diana and Charles.
Then, late in the morning of February 24, I answered the telephone in my bedroom and heard the voice of a friend in London… "Mary, it's Dena. Your girl made it!" I knew she meant that Diana's engagement to Prince Charles had just been announced. I gave a big shout and literally jumped for joy, banging my head on the low dormer ceiling. I couldn't have been prouder of Diana if I'd been her mother. I was so happy for her I could have burst! I knew how desperately she had wished for this outcome. The past fall, she had told me that she would "simply die" if the romance didn't work out. How wonderful that her dream had come true.
Almost immediately, a mischievous picture popped into my mind of the future and royal Diana, scheduled for an official day of handshaking, ribbon cutting, or tree planting and wishing she could have a friend call to cancel those tedious engagements. As Princess of Wales, she would not be able to cancel on short notice, if at all, as she had when she was baby-sitting for me. I wondered how the lively, spontaneous, and very young Diana would adjust to her official duties. I felt a bit sorry for her as I dimly realized how rigid and structured her new life might be. ~ Mary Robertson

Every man ought to plant a tree. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots. ~ Andrea Koehle Jones

On a certain day, month and year one should observe the ceremony of tree-planting. Thus, one fulfils one's responsibilities, serves one's fellow-beings which not only brings happiness but benefits all. ~ Dalai Lama

You can plant a tree to celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, a promotion or a business success. Tree hugging is the easiest yoga art to connect you with nature. ~ Amit Ray

We don't plant trees like we used to. A yard without trees is a yard without a future. It might as well be a cemetery. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

A gentleman in those days consulted his heirs about tree planting. Should you plant a group of copper beeches against a group of white maples over against the ha-ha a quarter of a mile from the house so that the contrast seen from the ball-room windows should be agreeable - in thirty years' time? In those days thought, in families, went in periods of thirty years, owner gravely consulting heir who should see that development of light and shade that the owner never would. ~ Ford Madox Ford

I'm planting a tree to teach me to make the world a better place. ~ Andrea Koehle Jones

To plant trees is to give body and life to one's dreams of a better world. ~ Russell Page

Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness. ~ Michael Pollan

Spraying to kill trees and and raspberry bushes after a clear-cut merely looks unaesthetic for a short time, but tree plantations are deliberate ecodeath. Yet, tree planting is often pictorially advertised on television and in national magazines by focusing on cupped caring hands around a seedling. But forests do not need this godlike interference ... Planting tree plantations is permanent deforestation ... The extensive planting of just one exotic species removes thousands of native species. ~ Bernd Heinrich

Last night I had rinsed out my sari strip and briefs in the sea. I walked down naked to where they hung in the branches of the silvery leafed tree beside the creek. Underneath the lazy sensuality of a luxurious stretch from toes to nose I felt the strong unequivocal demand of my blood. I hugged myself for a moment watching the grey light yield to dawn through half-closed eyes. ~ Lucy Irvine

It was a little thing, a baby tree, but still it tangled with things around it and required care to move. And when she pulled it out, it's roots still clung to Earth from it's old home. ~ Ally Condie

They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed any one by magic – nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble upon a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single hair upon any one's head. But, with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation as some of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire. ~ Susanna Clarke

Isn't there something in Genesis about not looking back? A stupid glance over my shoulder showed her expression relaxing, glad I wasn't taking anything that couldn't be replaced and glad I didn't destroy anything that couldn't be repaired. "Do you care for me, Georgia?" I asked her. "Tell me you don't and I'm out of your life forever." She stood in the driveway with her arms wrapped around herself like she was freezing. "Andre is on his way."
"I didn't ask you about no Andre."
"He'll be here in a minute."
My head hurt, but I pressed her. "It's a yes-or-no question."
"Can we talk when Andre gets back? We can-"
"Stop talking about him. I want to know if you love me."
"Andre…"
She said his name one time too many. For what happened next, she would have to take some of the blame. I asked her a simple question and she refused to give me a simple answer. I turned from her and made a sharp left turn, pounding across the yard, feeling the dry grass crunch under my shoes. Six long strides put me at the base of the massive tree. I touched the rough bark, an instant of reflection, to give Old Hickey the benefit of the doubt. But in reality, a hickory tree was a useless hunk of wood. Tall, and that's all. To break the shell of a hickory nut, you needed a hammer and an act of Congress, and even then you needed a screwdriver to get at the meat, which was about as tasty as a clod of limestone. Nobody would ever mourn a hickory tree except Celestial, and m ~ Tayari Jones

Here every castle had its godswood, and every godswood had its heart tree, and every heart tree its face. ~ George R R Martin

Imagine, a Being with a mind as great as God's, with feet like trees and a voice like rushing wind, telling you that you are His cherished creation. ~ Donald Miller

A list of things you might not hear: eylash opening on the pillow, the appearance of a star, a leaf leaving a tree, a hand in your hair, a lie being withheld, a tear's journey from eye to shoe, air becoming blue, longing. ~ Martine Murray

A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense ... [T]he wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain; But in my soul I plainly heard. Murmuring out of its myriad leaves, Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high, Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs - out of its foot-thick bark, That chant of the seasons and time - chant, not of the past only, but of the future ... ~ Walt Whitman

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off. ~ Willa Cather

I know you're angry," he told her.
"You threw me into a tree."
"I had to. ~ G.A. Aiken

Here is the solitude from which you are absent.
It is raining. The sea wind is hunting stray gulls.
The water walks barefoot in the wet streets. From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick.
White bee, even when you are gone, you live in my soul. You live again in time, slender and silent.
Ah, you who are silent. ~ Pablo Neruda

On the tree, Future, we build our nest; and in our solitude eagles shall bring us nourishment in their beaks! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In November, the trees are standing all sticks and bones. Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers. They know it is time to be still. ~ Cynthia Rylant

Grave

What do you think of my new glasses
I asked as I stood under a shade tree
before the joined grave of my parents,

and what followed was a long silence
that descended on the rows of the dead
and on the fields and the woods beyond,

one of the one hundred kinds of silence
according to the Chinese belief,
each one distinct from the others,

but the differences being so faint
that only a few special monks
were able to tell them apart.

They make you look very scholarly,
I heard my mother say
once I lay down on the ground

and pressed an ear into the soft grass.
Then I rolled over and pressed
my other ear to the ground,

the ear my father likes to speak into,
but he would say nothing,
and I could not find a silence

among the 100 Chinese silences
that would fit the one that he created
even though I was the one

who had just made up the business
of the 100 Chinese silences -
the Silence of the Night Boat

and the Silence of the Lotus,
cousin to the Silence of the Temple Bell
only deeper and softer, like petals, at its farthest edges. ~ Billy Collins

But, Aunt... I don't want to go to the grave site set aside for me a few years ago at the ancestral grave site. I don't want to go there. When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. It was sunny, and I liked the pine tree that stood bent but tall, but remaining a member of this family even in death would be too much and too hard. To try to change my mind, I would sing and pull weeds, sitting there until the sun set, but nothing made me feel comfortable there. I lived with this family for over fifty years; please let me go now. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

In chemistry class I write Peter a note
You were right about Josh.
I tap him on the back and slip the note in his hand. When he reads it, he sits up straight and immediately scrawls something back.
Be more specific.
He kissed me.
When Peter stiffens, I am ashamed to say that I feel a little bit vindicated. I wait for him to write back, but he doesn't. As soon as the bell rings, he turns around and says, "What the hell? How did that even happen?"
"He came over to help us trim the tree."
"And then what? He kissed you in front of Kitty?"
"No! It was just the two of us at the house."
Peter looks really irritated, and I'm starting to regret mentioning it. "What the hell is he thinking, kissing my girlfriend? It's fucking ridiculous. I'm gonna say something to him."
"Wait, what? No!"
"I have to, Lara Jean. He can't just get away with it."
I stand up and start packing up my bag. "You'd better not say anything to him, Peter. I mean it."
Peter watches me silently. And then he asks, "Did you kiss him back?"
"What does it matter?"
He looks taken aback. "Are you mad at me for something?"
"No," I say. "But I will be if you say anything to Josh."
"Fine," he says.
"Fine," I say back. ~ Jenny Han

To a Boy

Boy,
you are a hidden watering place under the trees
where, as the day darkens, gentle beasts with calm eyes
appear one after another.

Even if the sun drops flaming at the end of the fields where grass stirs greenly
and a wind pregnant with coolness and night-dew agitates your leafy bush,
it is only a premonition.

The tree of solitude that soars with ferocity,
crowned with a swirling night,
still continues in your dark place.

-Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato ~ Mutsuo Takahashi

Maybe there wasn't, after all, a clear motivation for any of the things that people did. Maybe they just did them for no reason at all or because of stupidity or selfishness or cowardice or anger or for reasons that made no rational sense - because the clouds happened to be a particularly gloomy shade of gray that day, because the barking of an old dog chained to a sycamore tree just happened to sound exactly like the crunch of soldiers' boots on gravel or the hum of bees like an engine in the head driving you mad. ~ John Gregory Brown

A tree only grows in the middle of the ocean if God planted it. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don't want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic. ~ Charles De Lint

All mammals undergo a certain degree of diversification. Darwin knew that. When he drew a family tree, it had many branches on it. ~ Donald Johanson

As a flower plucked from a tree gradually droops and shrivels, love that avoids the harsh realities of practical life cannot thrive on its own resources. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I'm going to consult some witches' books. Not that I have many here to consult. But I'm not going to Bryn's house. I've made it twelve whole days without sleeping with him, and no scary skeleton in a tree is going to send me to Seduction Central now that Bryn's big case is finally over. ~ Kimberly Frost

You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

At the root of the tree at the heart of the world,
With a chain round his neck, the Wolf lies curled.
His gleaming teeth and jaws are furled,
And the sun shall rise in the morning.
His chain, it is forged of the nerve of a bear,
Of the voice of a fish, and a girl's chin-hair.
His chain, it is light and strong and fair,
And the sun shall rise in the morning.
With a mountain's root, and a cat's foot-fall,
And the spit of a bird, he is held in thrall,
Though iron could bind him never at all,
And the sun shall rise in the morning.
The sun shall rise, the stars shall fade,
For the binding which the good gods made
Still loops the Wolf in its lovely braid,
And the sun shall rise in the morning. ~ Maculategiraffe

Final installment of Things More Fun Than Reading the Sarah Palin Memoir: Driving into a tree, microwaving your head, and getting stabbed in the eye with a carrot. ~ David Letterman

The tree is made by nature, mathematics by people. And combining the two is creating this beautiful alliance between humanity and nature. That's why my forests are mathematical expansion systems, all of them. ~ Agnes Denes

Every tree bears fruit in its sacred season. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Didn't Azmus say Galdran promised the Court our heads on poles after two days?"
"So Debegri swore," Bran said, smiling a little.
"That means we've held out all these weeks despite the enormous odds against us, and word of this has to be reaching the rest of the kingdom. Maybe those eastern Counts will decide to join us--and some of the other grass-backed vacillators as well," I finished stoutly.
Bran grinned. "Maybe so," he said. "And you're right. The higher Shevraeth drives us, the more familiar the territory. If we plan aright, we can lead them on a fine shadow chase and pick them off as they run. Maybe more traps…"
Khesot's lips compressed, and I shivered again. "More traps? You've already put out a dozen. Bran, I really hate those things."
Branaric winced, then he shook his head, his jaw tightening. "This is war. Baron Debegri was the first to start using arrows, despite the Code of War, and now Shevraeth has got us cut off from our own castle--and our supplies. We have to use every weapon to hand, and if that means planting traps for their unwary feet, so be it."
I sighed. "It is so…dishonorable. We have outlawed the use of traps against animals for over a century. And what if the Hill Folk stumble onto one?"
"I told you last week," Bran said, "my first command to those placing the traps is to lay sprigs of stingflower somewhere nearby. The Hill Folk won't miss those. Their noses will warn them to tread lightly long before their eyes w ~ Sherwood Smith

They all seemed hungry, happy, and healthy enough in their buzzing - oh the days were hot, and the noise of bees filled the air that was dusty with pollen and sun haze, and there were tiny black flies stuck to one another crowded by the creek and a creek stink rising from the deep pool under the willow tree where a wheat sack of new kittens had been drowned, and their tiny terrible struggling had shot like an electric current through the confusion of muddy water and up the arm of the person who had tied the stone around the mouth of the sack and thrust it into the water; and the culprit had not been able to brush away the current; it penetrated her body and made her heart beat with fear and pity. I was the culprit. ~ Janet Frame

Many trees planted around a home reduce the need for air conditioning. ~ Federico Pena

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be (Ben Jonson) ~ Aidan Chambers

The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. ~ James Irwin

The only time I feel at ease is swinging up and down in a coconut tree. ~ Ray Davies

...I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday - the longer, the better - from the great boarding-school, where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest. As to going a visiting, where can we not go, if we will; where have we not been, when we would; starting our fancy away from our Christmas Tree! ~ Charles Dickens

Love is the law of God. You live that you may learn to love. You love
that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of Man.You are
the tree of Life. Beware of fractionating yourselves. Set not a fruit against a fruit, a leaf against a leaf, a bough against a bough; nor
set the stem against the roots; nor set the tree against the mother-
soil. That is precisely what you do when you love one part more than
the rest, or to the exclusion of the rest. No love is possible except
by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self.
Therefore is God all Love, because he loves himself. So long as you
are pained by Love, you have not found your real self, nor have you
found the golden key of Love. Because you love an ephemeral self, your
love is ephemeral. ~ Mikhail Naimy

Who's this?" Dad asks when a catchy tune comes on the CD mix I made for the trip. We pass the skeleton tree that never has leaves, no matter what the time of year. Bare gray branches wave us on. "No one you know Dad," I say. It's me. ~ Cath Crowley

The new faith sought to break the human bond with magic nature, to disenchant the world of plants and animals by directing our attention to a single God in the sky. Yet Jehovah couldn't very well pretend the tree of knowledge didn't exist, not when generations of plant-worshiping pagans knew better. So the pagan tree is allowed to grow even in Eden, though ringed around now with a strong taboo. Yes, there is spiritual knowledge in nature, the new God is acknowledging, and its temptations are fierce, but I am fiercer still. Yield to it, and you will be punished. So unfolds the drug war's first battle. ~ Michael Pollan

When you plant a tree, if it doesn't grow well, you don't blame the tree. You look into the reasons it isn't doing well. It may need fertilizer or more water or less sun. We never blame the tree. Yet we're quick to blame our child. If we know how to take care of her, she will grow well, like a tree. Blaming has no good effect at all. Never blame, never try to persuade using reason and arguments; they never lead to any positive effect. That is my experience. No argument, no reasoning, no blaming, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The lightning said to the oak tree: 'Stand aside, or take what is coming to you! ~ Idries Shah

Over everything - up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters, along the riverbanks, tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charred tree trunks - was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green; the verdancy rose even from the foundations of ruined houses. Weeds already hid the ashes, and wild flowers were in bloom among the city's bones. The bomb had not only left the underground organs of the plants intact; it had stimulated them. ~ John Hersey

The maple tree plays a meaningful role in the historical development of Canada. It contributes to wood products, sustains the maple sugar industry, and beautifies the landscape. ~ Planet Collection

Major Rutledge of the Buffs, Eton and Sandhurst as to intonation, millimetrically tooth-brushed as to moustache, Savile Row as to the quite dazzling sartorial perfection of his khaki drill, was so magnificently out of place in the wild beauty of the rocky, tree-lined bluffs of that winding creek that his presence there seemed inevitable. ~ Alistair MacLean

The peasantry had only recently been freed from slavelike servitude, and they were crushed with debt. The economy was stagnant. The country was hardly industrialized; there were not many factories. Though in St. Petersburg itself, nobles and sophisticates attended balls in Parisian gowns and discussed the poetry of the French, this ramshackle empire also included huge, frigid wastes of fir tree and tundra, deserts where the only inhabitants were nomadic families with their herds, and mountain towns that had never even heard the name of their distant ruler. ~ M T Anderson

The trees are our lungs, the rivers our circulation, the air our breath, and the earth our body. ~ Deepak Chopra

You have climbed to the top of the skank tree, then fell ... and you banged every guy on the way down. ~ Christine Zolendz

There was some kind of scuffle two hundred yards down the street, again strangely noiseless, and a huddled knot of men opened up to reveal two brawlers being separated and pulled away from their fight. What I saw next gave me a fright: in the farther distance, beyond the listless crowd, the body of a lynched man dangling from a tree. The body was slender, dressed from head to toe in black, reflecting no light. It soon resolved itself, however, into a less ominous thing: dark canvas sheeting on a construction scaffold, twirling in the wind. ~ Teju Cole

Well, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!" ...
"I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I'd just rather not reap a crop every year. ~ Sharon Kay Penman