«Arbor Day»

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

John Muir

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.

Denise Levertov

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.

Chinese Proverb

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

John Muir

If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today.

Stephan Girard

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are written by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer, "Trees," 1914

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.

Martin Luther

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.

Cree Indian Proverb

Sadly, it’s much easier to create a desert than a forest.

James Lovelock

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.

Hal Borland

The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the dark¬ness of igno¬rance and unbe-lief, for when the light comes, the heart of the peo¬ple is always right.

John Muir

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

Rabindranath Tagore,

Fireflies, 1928

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

Kahlil Gibran,

Sand and Foam

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

John Muir

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. Nelson Henderson

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.

Karle Wilson Baker

Trees outstrip most people in the extent and depth of their work for the public good. Sara Ebenreck,

American Forests

You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.

Hal Borland

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

Alice Walker, The Color Purple,

1982

It is well that you should celebrate your Arbor Day thoughtfully, for within your lifetime the nation’s need of trees will become serious. We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship.

Theodore Roosevelt