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Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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• “The study of twigs seems esoteric. But this impression is dangerously wrong. Counting back through bud scars, tallying yearly growth, I not only see the struggle among native and foreign trees, I read the ledger of the world's atmosphere.”

  David G. Haskell (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They reach the realms of tranquil bliss. Green spaces folded in with trees, A paradise of pleasances.”

  John Conington (1825–1869) said by 1869 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Young trees in a thick forest are found to incline themselves towards that part through which the light penetrates, as plants are observed to do in I darkened chamber towards a stream of light let in through an orifice, and as the ears of corn do towards the south.”

  George Horne (1730–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “See the gnarl. The air is a gnarly ocean; the leaves dance on the trees. I’ve always enjoyed watching clouds and water; and now I realize that the computations they’re carrying out are fully as complex as anything in any book I might read. Each flickering shadow is a reminder of the world’s unsolvable and unpredictable richness.”

  Rudy Rucker (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If they cry for their parents, they are beaten severely, sometimes hanged upside down from trees and even branded or burned with cigarettes.”

  Kailash Satyarthi (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I was kind of a tomboy climbing trees so it never crossed my mind, no.”

  Rachel Weisz (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Supplies of wood fuel may be a byproduct of thinning, pruning, and harvesting homestead tree crops. These trees also provide the homestead with groundwater [for natural evaporative cooling and fruit], with protection from the sun, wind, and erosion, and with fodder, fruit, and nuts for animal and human consumption. Tree crops also furnish shelter and forage for the wild birds...”

  Ken Kern wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We came down from the trees, up from the grasslands, and into an SUV. We drove. We motored. We headed for that Texas horizon, flat as the flat-line on a heart monitor, straight to the brink of extinction, all the while pumping gas.”

  Andrea Lewis (writer) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Cryonic Freeze" Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 2013) "Felix, Living History Enactor, Despairs.

• “There's an old Greek proverb that says, "society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." If you don't like what's happening around you, what's happening to culture, what's happening to men and women, what people are becoming- get out there and start digging.”

  Jack Donovan (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “From 1501 to 1505 Sikandar Lodi sacked Dholpur, a dependency of Gwalior, so thoroughly that trees and orchards extending to fourteen miles around were “torn up from roots”. Houses and temples were destroyed and mosques built with their debris.”’ (57)”

  K. S. Lal (1920–2002) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Lal, K. S. (1995). Growth of scheduled tribes and castes in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

  Also quoted by: Sikandar Khan Lodi

• “We know the mountain peaks are lofty, and we think of them so, and we mentally enlarge them, but not the cottage at their foot, or the trees half way up.”

  Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) said by 1908 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Certain parts of the forest [the forest Bas Bréau, near Barbizon ] are truly wonderful. We can't even imagine such oak trees in Montpellier.”

  Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) said by 1870 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “This country [landscape around Honfleur, where Bazille was painting with Monet, circa 1864] is paradise. Nowhere could you find more lush fields with more beautiful trees. Cows and horses roam freely everywhere.”

  Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his mother, c. 1864; as quoted in Frédéric Bazille and early Impressionism, Marandel, Daulte et al. p. 166

• “We and the trees and the way Back from the fields of play Lasted as long as we could No more walks in the wood”

  John Hollander (1929–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Extract-last verse from 'An Old Fashioned Song' in 'Tesserae and other poems' (1993)

• “Imagine an immense plain.. ..in the middle, a small Gothic chapel surrounded by trees.. ..around that a hundred tents made of white canvas.. ..in open-air kitchens huge pots of boiling soup, incredible ragouts..”

  Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quote of Boudin in a letter to his brother, 1857; as cited in the descritption of 'The Pardon of Saint-Anne-La-Palud' by the Met-museum]

• “The continent had to be discovered emotionally. It had to become a homeland and feel like home. The sense of overpowering space, the isolation, the warmth of summer, the garish light, the shiny-leafed trees, the birds and insects, the smell of air filled with dust, the strange silences, and the landscapes in all their oddness had to become familiar.”

  Geoffrey Blainey (born 1930) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Land Half Won (1980)

• “Haunted trees covered behind the curtains of their own leaves stare at the dark from the fringe of streets.”

  Suman Pokhrel (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All trees and birds sky and stars bosoms and bangles were seeing everything.”

  Suman Pokhrel (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “May I take off clothes covering shame at the border leaving them hanging on dry trees of arrogance and run by wearing the rays of the sun.”

  Suman Pokhrel (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Here, in the company of the mindless trees, the free-flying birds, the bugs and frogs that passed from stimulus directly to response without the interval of consciousness between, did I hope to lose myself in the living mandala of evolution’s less self-tortured forms.”

  Norman Spinrad (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “one of the things we can do is continue to ensure that trees are allowed to survive - rather than by being chopped down by a council which is in thrall to its own officers”

  Michael Gove (born 1967) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Michael Gove: Sheffield City Council 'in thrall' over tree-felling, BBC News, 23 May 2018

• “Now fields are green, and trees bear silver buds.”

  John Ogilby (1600–1676) said by 1676 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “With cruell tusks a savage boar imploys, Who all king Œneus' fertile fields destroys: The stately trees tore from their fiber'd roots, Silver'd with blossoms of delicious fruits.”

  John Ogilby (1600–1676) said by 1676 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest.”

  Robert Henry Thurston (1839–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Robert Henry Thurston, "The Growth of the Steam Engine," in: Popular Science, Nov 1877, p. 11

• “The half moon sailed high, sharp-winged shadows skimming across it, and the conical hills and the vine-shrouded trees washed silver-green under the moonlight had the look of a decaying city millennia after a great catastrophe.”

  Lucius Shepard (1943–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance and what softness... I wish my music could show as much diversity.”

  Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Private letter, as quoted in At the Piano with Gabriel Fauré (1963) by Marguerite Long, p. 67

• “Speech is our most valuable instrument, because we can make it fit our common lives. We are not born to follow words. Words follow life. It has always been so from the very beginning. In fact, the human larynx and the shape of the passages above it have evolved in harmony with the lives our earliest ancestors lived, first in the trees, and then on the ground.”

  John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: p. 25 (1968; 24)

• “FOG: Fog covers this region. / Can you still hear my voice? / I don't understand trees. / They try to grab our hair. / A branch has fallen on you. I know that. / Could you look behind me: / is there a load / on my back, as well?”

  Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I stand at the window and see a house, trees, sky.”

  Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “He pointed diagonally across the lake with a ski-pole, to where a broad slope of pine trees covered with frost shone golden in the sun.”

  Kalle Päätalo (1919–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Everyone woke up and said, or thought, something like, "How is it that we came to believe any of this?" It’s like waking up one day and noting that you really don’t know why you put a Christmas tree up, but you’ve been doing it for a long time, and that’s what people do. There are reasons Christmas trees came about. The ritual lasts long after the reasons have been forgotten.”

  Jordan Peterson (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.”

  Agnes Martin (1912–2004) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: interview by Suzan Campbell, May 15, 1989; transcript in 'Archives of American Art', The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

• “The cheapness and quickness of modern methods of communication has been like a growth of wings, so that a thousand things which were thought to belong like trees in one place may travel about like birds.”

  Melvil Dewey (1851–1931) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Field and Future of Traveling Libraries". Home Education Department. Bulletin. State University of New York (1901), (40).

• “In the mountains a night of rain, And above the trees a hundred springs.”

  Wang Wei (699–761) said by 761 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in Lin Yutang's My Country and My People (1936), p. 247

• “I had so many other interests at the time: drawing, tinkering, building, inventing, games, sports, climbing trees. It took me through high school, and then college to settle on photography. But a half-century later, I'm still staging my shots.”

  Walter Wick (born 1953) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: My First Roll Of Film (March 2, 2016)

• “Autumn wind rises, white clouds fly. Grass and trees wither; geese go south.”

  Emperor Wu of Han (156–87 BC) first seen 127 BC wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Autumn Wind 127 BC (translated by Arthur Waley), Dictionary of Quotations, Chambers: Edinburgh, U.K, 2005, p. 930

• “When the world turns completely upside down You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color. Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.”

  Elinor Wylie (1885–1928) said by 1928 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “For the purposes of recreation he has selected the felling of trees, and we may usefully remark that his amusements, like his politics, are essentially destructive. (Laughter.) Every afternoon the whole world is invited to assist at the crashing fall of some beech or elm or oak—the forest laments in order that Mr. Gladstone may perspire.”

  Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Blackpool (24 January 1884), quoted in The Times (25 January 1884), p. 12

• “No thoughtful persons could stand beneath one of these immense trees, gaze up into its canopy, and help but think that here is a remarkable organism—so much more than all the board-feet of lumber that men might cleave from it.”

  Reed Noss (born 1952) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: (2000) (quote from p. 1)

• “Sultãn Muzaffar… started for Îdar. When he arrived in the town of Mahrãsã, he sent armies for destroying Îdar. The Rãjã of Îdar evacuated the fort and took refuge in the mountain of Bîjãnagar. The Sultãn, when he reached Îdar, found there ten Rajpûts ready to lay down their lives. He heaped barbarities on them and killed them. He did not leave even a trace of palaces, temples, gardens and trees…”

  Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1621) first seen 1511 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sultãn Muzaffar Shãh II of Gujarat (AD 1511-1526) Idar (Gujarat)

  Also quoted by: Muzaffar Shah II

• “That [watercolor] with the Cows has been partially washed out [reducing colors] and that ugly hedge of willow trees has been taken out, and is already doing better, but the paper is not a good quality. I don't know I'll finish it or make a new one. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

  Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In a letter to Pieter verLoren van Themaat, 30 March 1867; in Haagsch Gemeentearchief / Municipal Archive of The Hague

• “In Fall, October, November, I'm usually at work in Heeze, for interior studies. That is a beautiful, and the most quite time; the leaf of the trees [dropped!], what gives in summer such a strong green light into the domestic interiors. It was in the lodging of the good Saskia [Ciska] .. ..that I always got very special care.”

  Suze Robertson (1855–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I very much lament for what has happened to the groves in Madhura. The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at the points.”

  Gangadevi first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Gangadevi. On the condition of Madurai under the Muslim rule. Chattopadhyaya, Brajadulal (2006), Studying Early India: Archaeology, Texts and Historical Issues, Anthem Press, ISBN 978-1-84331-132-4

• “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”

  D. Elton Trueblood (1900–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The sun reared up over Hebron like a wild horse. It streamed across the sky, tangled with the naked branches of trees, brightened the hills, illuminated winding paths, glittered like incandescent dust on the heads and shoulders, the marching feet of the congregation; rimmed their flags and banners with light, and settled in the gleaming river of morning that flooded the land. (7: The Money-Box)”

  Sylvia Wynter (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In the square not even the ghost of a wind stirred the naked trees. Aware of the creeping death around them, the children no longer played by the spring. They remained at home, lingering by their mothers or sitting on the doorstep beside their fathers. And they wondered at the silences which had sprung up between their parents, between neighbour and neighbour. (6: The Star-Apple Tree )”

  Sylvia Wynter (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple trees.”

  Anna Sewell (1820–1878) said by 1878 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Ya' know that old trees just grow strongerAnd old rivers grow wilder every dayOld people just grow lonesomeWaiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello"...So if you're walking down the street sometimeAnd spot some hollow ancient eyesPlease don't just pass 'em by and stareAs if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello”

  John Prine (1946–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “South of Oklahoma, east of New Mexico, West of Louisiana, where all them Cajuns go We gotta a little place called Texas Where the women grow on trees There right there for the pickin' Just as easy as a man could please You'd better run take hold You're gonna get young 'fore ya get old Them Texas women is Texas gold Kisses that are sweeter than cactus”

  Willis Allan Ramsey (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “His batteries north of the swamp open fire on the nearest hill, which will later be assaulted. Batteries eastward, in front of the lake and the knoll where he stands, are rolled forward almost to the transverse road, between willow trees..”

  Malcolm Bosse (1926–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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