Pruning Quotes

• Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

  Francis Bacon

  Green Plants, Giving, Needs

  Francis Bacon (1765). “The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes”, p.579

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• The purpose of pruning is to improve the quality of the roses, not to hurt the bush.

  Florence Littauer

  Christian, Hurt, Rose

  Florence Littauer (2001). “It Takes So Little to Be Above Average”, Harvest House Pub

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• As the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, so should you stop off your miscellaneous activity and concentrate your force on one or a few points.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Two, Tree

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• The vinedresser is never nearer the branches then when he is pruning them.

  David Jeremiah

  Branches

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• Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something's time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings.

  Henry Cloud

  Moving, Alive, Able

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• The seed of God's Word won't grow to fruitfulness without pruning for rest, quiet, and calm

  Kevin DeYoung

  Calm, Quiet, Grows

  Kevin DeYoung (2013). “Crazy Busy”, p.19, SPCK

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• Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot and the pruning knife.

  Margaret Fuller

  Education, Knives, Training

  Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.60

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• Before most people start boasting about their family tree, they already have done a good pruning job.

  Orlando Aloysius Battista

  Funny, Family, Jobs

  "Quotoons: a speaker's dictionary".

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• I love tearing things out of the ground. I love digging and discarding. I love pruning. In fact, I love pruning so much that I once gave myself carpal-tunnel syndrome because I attacked a trumpet vine with so much dedication.

  Susan Orlean

  Dedication, Tunnels, Digging

  "Prune" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. September 28, 2010.

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• I always think of a show like a plant - a little pruning now and then keeps it healthy, but you shouldn't pull it out and chop the roots up.

  Len Goodman

  Thinking, Roots, Healthy

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• Men can't be trusted with pruning shears any more than they can be trusted with the grocery money in a delicatessen . . . They are like boys with new pocket knives who will not stop whittling.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Boys, Men, Knives

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• I still have a dream today that one day war will come to an end, that men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, that nations will no longer rise up against nations, neither will they study war any more.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, War, Men

  Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1989). “The trumpet of conscience”, HarperCollins

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• Sicknesses, losses, crosses, anxieties and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful and spiritual-minde d. They are as needful as the pruning knife to the vine and the refiner’s furnace to the gold.

  J. C. Ryle

  Spiritual, Disappointment, Humble

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• Firmness in all aspects is a most important quality when gardening, not only in planting but in pruning, dividing and tying up. Plants are like babies, they know when an amateur is handling them.

  Margery Fish

  Baby, Important, Gardening

  Margery Fish (2011). “We Made a Garden”, p.39, Pavilion Books

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• In order for good to blossom it must be cultivated and exercised by constant practice, and to be truly righteous there is required a daily pruning of the evil growth of our characters by a daily repen- tance from sin.

  Harold B. Lee

  Character, Order, Practice

  Harold B. Lee (1973). “Youth & the church”

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• Clarity is the most important thing. I can compare clarity to pruning in gardening. You know, you need to be clear. If you are not clear, nothing is going to happen. You have to be clear. Then you have to be confident about your vision. And after that, you just have to put a lot of work in.

  Diane von Furstenberg

  Vision, Important, Gardening

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• There is no way of making a hedge grow like pruning it. There is no way of making sex interesting like repressing it.

  Alan Watts

  Sex, Interesting, Way

  Alan Watts (1996). “Myth and Religion: The Edited Transcripts”, p.94, Tuttle Publishing

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• It was difficult to enjoy the trees and flowers when I was so aware of all that I had not yet done - pruning, weeding, transplanting, mulching, composting, tagging. When I was doing the work myself, I was happy, free.

  Jay Neugeboren

  Happiness, Weed, Work

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• For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

  Khalil Gibran

  Roots, Growth, Crowns

  Khalil Gibran (2014). “The Prophet - Der Prophet”, p.22, Lulu.com

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• The first set of questions to ask yourself when you're doing cost cutting is relatively straightforward, which is, you know, can you use the necessity of cost cutting as an opportunity to do pruning or trimming for projects that aren't being as successful? But, you know, frequently those are the easy ones. I mean, there's always some kind of social costs internal to the company, but that's the easy way of looking at the future.

  Reid Hoffman

  Mean, Cutting, Successful

  Source: bigthink.com

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• I pluck up the good lissome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory.

  Elizabeth I

  Memories, Reading, Herbs

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• Wakefulness is the only saintliness there is, and sleepiness, unconsciousness, is the only sin there is; all other sins are born out of it. Cut the root, cut the very root! Don't go on pruning the leaves.

  Rajneesh

  Cutting, Roots, Goes On

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• The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Knives, Government Debt, Office

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.212

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• A youth, like a tree, needs pruning.

  Andrew Wiggins

  Tree, Needs, Youth

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• Don't be afraid to write bad songs and then start over and re-evaluate. Songs are like plants, in that you grow them. Some grow really fast, and others need pruning and care...And, finally, a song needs to move you. If it doesn't move you, it will never move anybody else.

  Corey Harris

  Song, Moving, Writing

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