“I love trees. They are like us. Roots on the ground and head to the sky.” These are the words of the writer Erri de Luca. How could one fail to agree with him? Think about it: trees, besides allowing life, are also the perfect metaphor for it. The need for solidity, the desire for freedom and lightness, the will to grow and expand, and the momentum for new experiences, are the essence of the human being, which the plant world embodies extraordinarily. Perhaps, it is also for this reason that we have decided to celebrate the Earth’s green lungs. We will do it by sharing with you the best quotes about trees and forests.
Let’s find them out in this article!
Quotes on Trees and Forests
- The tree has represented, since ancient times, the symbol and expression of life, balance, and wisdom. (Jean Giono)
- 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)
- If we represent knowledge as a tree, we know that things that are divided are yet connected. We know that to observe the divisions and ignore the connections is to destroy the tree. (Wendell Berry)
- There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. (Minnie Aumonier)
- The trunks of trees are separate, but the roots hold on to each other tightly and the branches at the top are interwoven. They are united at the deepest and the higher level. Men should be like an immense forest. (Romano Battaglia)
Trees, an extraordinary source of inspiration
- Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. (Hermann Hesse)
- Do you want to know where I found my inspiration? In a tree; the tree supports the large branches, these the smaller branches and the twigs support the leaves. And every single part grows harmonious, magnificent. (Antoni Gaudì)
- Do like trees: change the leaves, but keep the roots. So, change your ideas, but keep your principles. (Victor Hugo)
- Man is like a tree, and in every winter, he spreads the spring with new leaves and new vigor. (Vasco Pratolini)
- What an extraordinary gift trees are and how many things we can learn from them, if only we know how to watch, to see, to give them the love and attention that we give to friends! (Susanna Tamaro)
The magic of trees and forests
- In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful. (Alice Walker)
- Love not the shapely branch, nor place its image alone in your heart. It dies away. Love the whole tree; then you will love the shapely branch, the tender and withered leaf, the shy bud and the full-blown flower, the falling petal and the dancing night, the splendid shadow of full love. Ah, love life in its fullness. It knows no decay. (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
- Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. (Khalil Gibran)
- Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. (Rabindranath Tagore)
Quotes on Trees, Plants, and Forests
- The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life activity; it affords protection to all beings, offering shade even to the axe-man who destroys it. (Buddha)
- Frodo laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree’s skin and of the life within it. He felt delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself. (J. R. R. Tolkien)
- I see everywhere in nature, for example in trees, expression skills and, so to speak, a soul. (Vincent van Gogh)
- No matter how beautiful architecture men can make, they will never create such a wonderful thing as a tree. (Pier Luigi Nervi)
- Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. (John Muir)
Every time you feel lost, think about trees
- Every time you feel lost, confused, think about trees, remember how they grow. Remember that a tree with lots of branches and few roots will get toppled by the first strong wind, while the sap hardly moves in a tree with many roots and few branches. Roots and branches must grow in equal measure, you have to stand both inside of things and above them, because only then will you be able to offer shade and shelter, only then will you be able to cover yourself with leaves and fruit at the proper season. (Susanna Tamaro)
- A tree is rooted in the earth; the deeper its roots go, the higher its branches rise. The tree can whisper with the clouds only if its roots go very deep into the earth. The proportion is the same; the higher the tree, the deeper the roots. There is a balance. The tree can touch the stars, but then the roots have to go to the very rock bottom. (Osho)
- Incessantly, the tree gains momentum and quivers, while all its leaves tremble, its countless wings. (André Suarès)
- The forest sounds and is silent: it is silent when I listen. It sounds when I am asleep. (Pablo Neruda)
Best Quotes on Woods
- You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. (Saint Bernard)
- Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise. (George Washington Carver)
I could survive the disappearance of all the cathedrals in the world, I could never survive the disappearance of the woods I see every morning from my window. (Ermanno Olmi) - I love the woods: they calm my storms, leaving peace in my eyes. (Fabrizio Caramagna)
- Prayer is to be silent in the woods. (Mario Rigoni Stern)
- I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (Henry David Thoreau, quoted in the movie “Dead Poets Society”)
- Sometimes I would like to describe the smell of the forest. It is damp wood, stone, moss, something loose in the ground, a principle of fruit and berries and leaves, the wild hair of some animal. (Fabrizio Caramagna)
- It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. (Henry David Thoreau)
When we get something from the forest, sooner or later, we must return it. The rights must be equal and we must return our respect to the forest. (Romano Battaglia) - Nor do we pay greater worship to images shining with gold and ivory than to the forests and to the very silences that they contain. (Pliny the Elder)
Quotes on Planting Trees and Defending Forests
- The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. (Chinese Proverb)
- Makes more noise a tree that falls, than an entire forest that grows. (Lao Tse)
- Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. (Martin Luther King)
- A tree is a slow explosion of a seed. (Bruno Munari)
- Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away. (John Muir)
- The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children. (Thornton Niven Wilder)
- When we plant a tree, we are doing what we can to make our planet a more wholesome and happier dwelling–place for those who come after us, if not for ourselves. (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.)
- It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will someday give shade to people he may never meet. (D. Elton Trueblood)
What are your favorite quotes about trees and forests? Let us know with a comment!
Cover image: photo by veeterzy on Unsplash