Canopy Quotes

• This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.

  William Shakespeare

  Fire, Air, Space

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• Heaven's ebon vault Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain her sleeping world.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Love, Stars, Sleep

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1871). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.18

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• San Francisco lags behind other communities in providing a vital, vibrant and ecologically sustainable urban canopy, as well as open space in the city.

  Gavin Newsom

  San Francisco, Space, Cities

  81 Copy quote

• Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.

  Alexander Pope

  Light, Sea, Sky

  Alexander Pope (1847). “The works of Alexander Pope, with notes and illustrations, by himself and others. To which are added, a new life of the author [&c.] by W. Roscoe”, p.35

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• This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

  William Shakespeare

  Moving, Angel, Men

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.

  Maya Angelou

  Spiritual, Needs, Sitting

  Maya Angelou (2011). “Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now”, p.64, Bantam

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• But 'neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.

  William C. Bryant

  Flames, Tree, Listening

  William Cullen Bryant, “Autumn Woods”

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• Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects treachery?

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Fear, Silly

  'Henry VI, Part 3' (1592) act 1, sc. 5, l. 42

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• Nothing can match the wonderment that comes from staring up into the star-filled canopy above and realizing that you are a part of that creation.

  Tim Ferriss

  Stars, Realizing, Creation

  18 Copy quote

• God's canopy is over you and will cover you at all times, preserving you from evil.

  Smith Wigglesworth

  God, Evil, Over You

  Smith Wigglesworth (2013). “Ever Increasing Faith”, p.30, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Green, the color of growth, or surgent life, enwraps the land. New green, still as individual as the plants themselves. Cool green, which will merge as the weeks pass, the Summer comes, into a canopy of shade of busy chlorophyll.

  Hal Borland

  Summer, Color, Land

  22 Copy quote

• I live on the Jellicoe Road. Where trees make canopies over-head and where you can sit at the top of them and see forever.

  Melina Marchetta

  Tree, Forever, Jellicoe Road

  11 Copy quote

• This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.

  William Shakespeare

  Vapour, Earth, Cynicism

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk
  The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
  There is no rustling in the lofty elm
  That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
  Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
  And interrupted murmur of the bee,
  Settling on the sick flowers,
  And then again Instantly on the wing.

  William C. Bryant

  Summer, Morning, Flower

  William Cullen Bryant, “Summer Wind”

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• Be guided by the stars which you place well on the canopy of your night sky.

  Mary Anne Radmacher

  Stars, Night, Sky

  12 Copy quote

• Now, among the heresies that are spoken in this matter is the habit of calling a grey day a "colourless" day. Grey is a colour, and can be a very powerful and pleasing colour.... A grey clouded sky is indeed a canopy between us and the sun; so is a green tree, if it comes to that. But the grey umbrellas differ as much as the green in their style and shape, in their tint and tilt. One day may be grey like steel, and another grey like dove’s plumage. One may seem grey like the deathly frost, and another grey like the smoke of substantial kitchens.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Powerful, Sky, Tree

  10 Copy quote

• O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse.

  William Shakespeare

  Sleep, Insomnia, Nurse

  'Henry IV, Part 2' (1597) act 3, sc. 1, l. 5

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• The greatest benefit derived from the study of science is that it lifts you out of and above the littleness of daily trials. We learn to live in the universe as a part of it; we cannot seperate ourselves from it - our every act connects us with it - our every act affects the whole. Standing under the canopy of stars and remembering their presence you could scarcely do a petty deed, or think a wicked thought.

  Maria Mitchell

  Stars, Thinking, Wicked

  35 Copy quote

• I humbly thank the gods benign, For all the blessings that are mine... The morning drips her dew for me, Noon spreads an opal canopy. Home-bound, the drifting cloud-crafts rest Where sunset ambers all the west; Soft o'er the poppy-fields of sleep, The drowsy winds of dreamland creep. What idle things are wealth and fame Beside the treasures one could name!

  Robert Loveman

  Gratitude, Morning, Sunset

  8 Copy quote

• My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted. It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said.

  Melina Marchetta

  Father, Ocean, Journey

  Melina Marchetta (2010). “Jellicoe Road”, p.1, Harper Collins

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• Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade; Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think.

  Thomas Gray

  Thinking, Water, Rude

  1748 Ode on the Spring, l.11-16.

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• A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge, dun cupola, like a fools-cap crown On a fool's head - and there is London Town.

  Lord Byron

  Dirty, Eye, Sight

  4 Copy quote

• There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space ... then there's a race - between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space.

  Terry Pratchett

  Growing Up, Fall, Sky

  20 Copy quote

• libraries are fascinating places: sometimes you feel you are under the canopy of a railway station, and when you read books about exotic places there's a feeling of travelling to distant lands

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Land, Feelings

  Umberto Eco (2011). “The Prague Cemetery”, p.113, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• During climbs into taller trees, I was occasionally able to look down on the backs of birds, which shine with reflected sunlight as they move through the green depths of the canopy, like schools of fish.

  Richard Preston

  Moving, School, Shining

  Richard Preston (2007). “The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring”, p.231, Random House

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