Leafs Quotes - Page 9

• I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeurve for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels!

  Walt Whitman

  Running, Depressing, Stars

  Walt Whitman, “Song Of Myself, XXXI”

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. Loving all, you will perceive the mystery of God in all.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Animal, Light, Environmental

  6 Copy quote

• If there is a reason to believe in God, it would be the Havana Leaf.

  Norman Lear

  Believe, Would Be, Reason

  Interview with Norman Lear, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 7, 2012.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember that your tracks are one strand of the web woven endlessly in the hand of god. They're tied to those of the mouse in the field, the eagle on the mountain, the crab in its hold, the lizard beneath its rock. The leaf that falls to the ground a thousand miles away touches your life. The impress of your foot in the soil is felt through a thousand generations.

  Daniel Quinn

  Fall, Rocks, Eagles

  10 Copy quote

• It is the incongruous thing in my entire life, this isolation.. ... My work requires it - but I myself have no need or use for it - Perhaps once on a time I found isolation imperative - I think all chrysalides do - all embryos go for the underside of the leaf in the time of body-change preparing for the final reassertion -resurrection - the establishment of the entity. But now I've come up tot the outside of my casements.

  Marsden Hartley

  Thinking, Finals, Needs

  "Marsden Hartley". Book by Gail R. Scott, p. 151, 1988.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I found ways to seal off the powdery surface of pastel so that gold leaf can adhere to it. Similarly, I found ways to roughen the texture of the gold leaf so pastel can be applied over it.

  Doug Dawson

  Gold, Texture, Way

  7 Copy quote

• I saw the sunlight in a leafy place, Bathing itself in liquid green and amber-- Where every flower had tears hid in its petals, And every leaf was lovely with the rain.

  Ernest Rhys

  Rain, Flower, Lovely

  Ernest Rhys (1918). “The Leaf Burners: And Other Poems”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do you know why the leaves change colour?... Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there--that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.

  Mark Lawrence

  Weed, Men, Tree

  4 Copy quote

• In all things that live there are certain irregularities, and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry.

  John Ruskin

  Beauty, Perfect, Branches

  John Ruskin (1854). “On the nature of Gothic architecture: and herein of the true functions of the workman in art. Being the greater part of the 6th chapter of the 2nd vol. of 'Stones of Venice'. [48 p.].”, p.14

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The benevolence of wrapping the partridge in a vine leaf brings out its quality, just as the barrel of Diogenes brought forth the qualities of the great thinker.

  Emmanuel des Essarts

  Food, Cooking, Quality

  4 Copy quote

• O spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise / In the young children's eyes. / But I have learnt the years, and know the yet / Leaf-folded violet.

  Alice Meynell

  Sweet, Children, Spring

  Alice Meynell, Wilfrid Meynell (1931). “Selected Poems of Alice Meynell”, London, Nonesuch

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest?

  Angela Carter

  Monsters, Looks, Forests

  Angela Carter (1984). “Nights at the circus”, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's design and there's art. Good design is total harmony. There's no better designer than nature - if you look at a branch or a leaf, it's perfect. It's all function. Art is different. It's about emotion. It's about suffering and beauty - but mostly suffering!

  Diane von Furstenberg

  Art, Perfect, Design

  "Women In Design: Diane Von Furstenberg". Interview with David Colman, www.elledecor.com. October 18, 2010.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Fighting, Blow, Feet

  7 Copy quote

• The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Cities, Rivers

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.181, Graphic Arts Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ah, the pretty whisperers! It was very well When the leaves were thick and green, awhile ago-- Leaves are secret-keepers; but since the last leaf fell There is nothing hidden from the eyes below.

  Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

  Eye, Secret, Green

  4 Copy quote

• Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf.

  Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

  Evil, Laughing, Spears

  7 Copy quote

• There are minds constructed like the eyes of certain insects, which discern, with admirable distinctness, the most delicate lineaments and finest veins of the leaf which bears them, but are totally unable to take in the ensemble of the plant or shrub. When error has effected an entrance into such minds, it remains there impregnable, because no general view assists them in throwing off the chance impression of the moment.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Eye, Errors, Views

  6 Copy quote

• The practice of Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet — to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind — with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind's return home.

  Nhat Hanh

  Home, Practice, Water

  Thich Nhat Hanh (1999). “Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals, 1962-1966”, p.69, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Rotting, Arteries, Planets

  23 Copy quote

• The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf. The vapor climbs the sunbeam, and comes back in blessings upon the exhausted herb. The exhalation of the plant is wafted to the ocean. And so goes on the beautiful commerce of nature. And all because of dissimilarity--because no one thing is sufficient in itself, but calls for the assistance of something else, and repays by a contribution in turn.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Beautiful, Ocean, Blessing

  13 Copy quote

• In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest, there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools

  Alan Paton

  Fall, Dark, White

  Alan Paton (1950). “Cry, the beloved country”, Charles Scribner's Sons

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• the various earth odors all have a separate tale to tell, and the leaf mold of the woods bears a wholly different fragrance from that of the soil under pasture turf, or the breath that the garden gives off in great sighs of relief when it is relaxed and refreshed by a summer shower.

  Mabel Osgood Wright

  Summer, Nature, Garden

  4 Copy quote

• Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

  Florence King

  Democracy, Figs, Chinks

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.97, Macmillan

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  World, Matter, Inexplicable

  7 Copy quote