62 Inspirational Quotes About Trees

Trees have long been revered as symbols of strength, growth, and resilience. Their towering presence and deep-rooted wisdom have inspired countless poets, philosophers, and nature lovers throughout history. As silent witnesses to the passage of time, trees teach us about patience, harmony, and interconnectedness. In this collection, we celebrate the profound beauty and inspiration that trees offer, through a selection of 62 quotes that capture their essence. Whether you seek motivation, solace, or a deeper connection with nature, these quotes will inspire you to appreciate the remarkable wonder of trees and the life-affirming messages they embody. Join us as we explore these timeless words of wisdom that remind us of our intrinsic bond with the natural world.

1. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” - William Blake

2. “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” - John Lubbock

3. “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” - John Muir

4. “Wolves directly affect the entire ecosystem, not just moose populations, their main prey, because less moose equals more tree growth” - Rolf Peterson

5. “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” - Chris Maser

6. “Trees, for example, carry the memory of rainfall. In their rings we read ancient weather—storms, sunlight, and temperatures, the growing seasons of centuries. A forest shares a history, which each tree remembers even after it has been felled.” - Anne Michaels

7. “To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.” - Thomas Hardy

8. “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. “The trail of lime trees outside our building is still a public loo. …where else are they supposed to go to the toilet in a city where public toilets are about as common as UFO sightings?” (pp.281-82)” - Sarah Turnbull

10. “Rilke wrote: 'These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.” - Gaston Bachelard

11. “Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.” - Gaston Bachelard

12. “Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers.And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.” - James Salter

13. “Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to get one that hits back.” - J.K. Rowling

14. “Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness.” - Michael Pollan

15. “The few trees still upright were stripped of their branches, lonely flagpoles without a nation to claim them.” - Mike Mullin

16. “Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.Their language has been lost.But not the gestures.” - Vera Nazarian

17. “I never see that prettiest thing-A cherry bough gone white with Spring-But what I think, "How gay 'twould beTo hang me from a flowering tree.” - Dorothy Parker

18. “Two TreesA portion of your soul has beenentwined with mineA gentle kind of togetherness, whileseparately we stand.As two trees deeply rooted inseparate plots of ground,While their topmost branchescome together,Forming a miracle of laceagainst the heavens.” - Janet Miles

19. “And see the peaceful trees extendtheir myriad leaves in leisured dance—they bear the weight of sky and cloudupon the fountain of their veins.” - Kathleen Raine

20. “He that planteth a tree is a servant of God, he provideth a kindness for many generations, and faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.” - Henry Van Dyke

21. “As I age in the world it will rise and spread,and be for this place horizonand orison, the voice of its winds.I have made myself a dream to dreamof its rising, that has gentled my nights.Let me desire and wish well the lifethese trees may live when Ino longer rise in the morningsto be pleased with the green of themshining, and their shadows on the ground, and the sound of the wind in them.” - Wendell Berry

22. “Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.” - Brian Jacques

23. “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, doesn't it just lie there and rot?” - Chuck Palahniuk

24. “Love the trees until their leaves fall off, then encourage them to try again next year.” - Chad Sugg

25. “Nothing but trees.” - Robert Liparulo

26. “What makes the strength of the soldier isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself, by staying centered. That Maori player was like a tree, a great indestructible oak with deep roots and a powerful radiance- everyone could feel it. And yet you also got the impression that the great oak could fly, that it would be as quick as the wind, despite, or perhaps because of, its deep roots.” - Muriel Barbery

27. “I got a statistic for you right now. Grab your pencil, Doug. There are five billion trees in the world. I looked it up. Under every tree is a shadow, right? So, then, what makes night? I'll tell you: shadows crawling out from under five billion trees! Think of it! Shadows running around in the air, muddying the waters you might say. If only we could figure a way to keep those darn five billion shadows under those trees, we could stay up half the night, Doug, because there'd be no night!” - Ray Bradbury

28. “A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.” - George R.R. Martin

29. “As soon as he had disappeared Deborah made for the trees fringing the lawn, and once in the shrouded wood felt herself safe. She walked softly along the alleyway to the pool. The late sun sent shafts of light between the trees and onto the alleyway, and a myriad insects webbed their way in the beams, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder. But were they insects, wondered Deborah, or particles of dust, or even split fragments of light itself, beaten out and scattered by the sun? It was very quiet. The woods were made for secrecy. They did not recognise her as the garden did. ("The Pool")” - Daphne du Maurier

30. “Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” - Khalil Gibran

31. “Trees are corrupting our parks. They should be arrested for loitering. For deciduous trees, add littering and indecent exposure to that list of offenses.” - Bauvard

32. “We need to save the forests. I have a big warehouse we can store them in.” - Bauvard

33. “Mothman flew away from town, like a giant bat, and then disappeared from sight behind a thicket of skeletal autumn trees.” - Don Roff

34. “In all these sights I achieve solace only in bringing forth trees, picturing them blooming like smoke from the roofs of gutted buildings, dreaming of what a fine and picturesque pile of rubble this city will someday make.” - Tod Wodicka

35. “She was sitting in a garden more beautiful than even her rampaging imagination could ever have conjured up, and she was being serenaded by trees.” - Lynn Kurland

36. “It was a though we’d been living for a year in a dense grove of old trees, a cluster of firs, each with its own rhythm and character, from whom our bodies had drawn not just shelter but perhaps even a kind of guidance as we grew into a family.” - David Abram

37. “Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

38. “Voll Blüten steht der Pfirsichbaum nicht jede wächst zur Frucht sie schimmern hell wie Rosenschaum durch Blau und Wolkenflucht. Wie Blüten geh'n Gedanken auf hundert an jedem Tag -- lass' blühen, lass' dem Ding den Lauf frag' nicht nach dem Ertrag! Es muss auch Spiel und Unschuld sein und Blütenüberfluss sonst wär' die Welt uns viel zu klein und Leben kein Genuss.” - Hermann Hesse

39. “That streetside tree is obscuring the air. Cut it down. Haul it in for questioning. There are secrets within that foliage. You might want to separate the branches in different rooms and apply some elementary game theory.”“Question a plant?”“Trees have a will too, just like people. We have to know it’s purpose. Read Schopenhauer.”“Schopenwho?”“He was the only authentic German. You might like him. Being a police officer, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the need to put an end to the lives of the perverse when sex crimes go too far. Now just generalize that necessity to every human being.” - Benson Bruno

40. “The sawdust flew. A slightly sweet fragrance floated in the immediate area. It was a sweet but subtle aroma, neither the scent of pine nor willow, but one from the past that had been forgotten, only to reappear now after all these years, fresher than ever. The workmen occasionally scooped up a handful of sawdust, which they put into their mouths and swallowed. Before that they had chewed on pieces of green bark that they had stripped from the cut wood. It had the same fragrance and it freshened their mouths, so at first that was what they had used. Now even though they were no longer chewing the bark with which they felt such a bond, the stack of corded wood was a very appealing sight. From time to time they gave the logs a friendly slap or kick. Each time they sawed off a section, which rolled to the ground from the sawhorse, they would say:'Off with you - go over there and lie down where you belong.'What they were thinking was that big pieces of lumber like this should be used to make tables or chairs or to repair a house or make window frames; wood like this was hard to find.But now they were cutting it into kindling to be burned in stoves, a sad ending for good wood like this. They could see a comparison with their own lives, and this was a saddening thought. ("North China")” - Xiao Hong

41. “Planting trees, I myself thought for a long time, was a feel-good thing, a nice but feeble response to our litany of modern-day environmental problems. In the last few years, though, as I have read many dozens of articles and books and interviewed scientists here and abroad, my thinking on the issue has changed. Planting trees may be the single most important ecotechnology that we have to put the broken pieces of our planet back together.” - Jim Robbins

42. “Even viewed conservatively, trees are worth far more than they cost toplant and maintain. The U.S. Forest Service's Center for Urban ForestResearch found a ten-degree difference between the cool of a shadedpark in Tucson and the open Sonoran desert. A tree planted in theright place, the center estimates, reduces the demand for airconditioning and can save 100 kilowatt hours in annual electrical use,about 2 to 8 percent of total use. Strategically planted trees canalso shelter homes from wind, and in cold weather they can reduceheating fuel costs by 10 to 12 percent. A million strategicallyplanted trees, the center figures, can save $10 million in energycosts. And trees increase property values, as much as 1 percent foreach mature tree. These savings are offset somewhat by the cost ofplanting and maintaining trees, but on balance, if we had to pay forthe services that trees provide, we couldn't afford them. Becausetrees offer their services in silence, and for free, we take them forgranted.” - Jim Robbins

43. “There are gigantic trees that have grown tall into the winds and the clouds over the thousands of years of their lives, their tops are rustled and tossed by the mists of the atmosphere! Then there are the short trees that don't live for long, they are young with no deep roots and only a few annual rings to tell their stories.The tall, ancient trees sway in the realm of freedom while the short young trees cannot even raise their branches into that direction of the sky! Now, you are the bird who needs a tree to live in; if you choose to live in the tree which thrives in the realm of freedom, that doesn't mean you are not committed to that tree. You are still committed to your tree, but together you and your tree live in freedom. Freedom is not the absence of commitment. If you are the bird who chooses to fly around amongst the short trees and live in them, that's because your wings are too short to make it any higher and your vision too near to see any further into the clouds. And if you move from one short tree to the next short tree, that doesn't mean you are free, you are still down there below, freedom is still nowhere near you.” - C. JoyBell C.

44. “Leaves turned to soil beneath my feet. Thus it is, trees eat themselves.” - David Mitchell

45. “If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.” - Maggie Stiefvater

46. “I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots.” - Andrea Koehle Jones

47. “Did you hear about the lawsuit? Mary asked."No, what?""I hear that he is so big," she lifted her eyebrows to indicate what she meant, "that he put a girl in the hospital and she is suing him, because she can never have babies because of him.""Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!" the sisters chorused."Could a guy really do that?" Lydia asked.Elizabeth shrugged. "I guess, but he would have to be the size of a friggin' oak tree.” - Heather Lynn Rigaud

48. “In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.” - Paulo Coelho

49. “If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees.” - Lao Tzu

50. “Every morning I was renewed, though. Air and light healed me, over and over. I got to where I depended on it. When I was feeling my worst, I would step out into the yard and put my hands on the branches of the little redbud. It made me feel like I was saying a prayer, to do this. I know that sounds like foolishness, but that little tree was like an altar for me. I stood there in the cold of early winter, wishing for the redbud to bear leaves so that I might put my face against them.” - Silas House

51. “Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons.” - Willa Cather

52. “People here had redwood trees in their backyards. You were never far from the infinite.” - Amy Stewart

53. “الضجر والنفور كأسلوب حياة يليق بهيبة متخفية لشجرة” - Eman Herzallah

54. “I think people who don't know the woods very well sometimes imagine it as a kind of undifferentiated mass of greenery, an endless continuation of the wall of trees they see lining the road. And I think they wonder how it could hold anyone's interest for very long, being all so much the same. But in truth I have a list of a hundred places in my own town I haven't been yet. Quaking bogs to walk on; ponds I've never seen in the fall (I've seen them in the summer - but that's a different pond). That list gets longer every year, the more I learn, and doubtless it will grow until the day I die. So many glades; so little time.” - Bill McKibben

55. “...freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin - inhale deeply and fill your soul with wintry night...” - John Geddes

56. “Trees lose their leaves in blizzards like these.” - Ashly Lorenzana

57. “The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with Jonas, listening to his stories. All cat stories start with the statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this," and I lay with my head close to Jonas and listened. There was no change coming, I thought here, only spring; I was wrong to be so frightened. The days would get warmer, and Uncle Julian would sit in the sun, and Constance would laugh when she worked in the garden, and it would always be the same. Jonas went on and on ("And then we sang! And then we sang!") and the leaves moved overhead and it would always be the same.” - Shirley Jackson

58. “Love is like encountering a forest and having to chop down every tree but one. Oh, and you have to chop down each tree by hugging it until it falls.
” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

59. “By respecting the trees, you prove that you are a person who deserves to be respected!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

60. “My father had a healthy disregard for social conventions: he once let me paint the house windows in rainbows with my watercolor set, to my mother's horror, and he'd clap for trees that he thought were doing a good job of exploding into red during the fall.” - Jennifer Dubois

61. “When she had arranged her household affairs, she came to the library and bade me follow her. Then, with the mirror still swinging against her knees, she led me through the garden and the wilderness down to a misty wood. It being autumn, the trees were tinted gloriously in dusky bars of colouring. The rowan, with his amber leaves and scarlet berries, stood before the brown black-spotted sycamore; the silver beech flaunted his golden coins against my poverty; firs, green and fawn-hued, slumbered in hazy gossamer. No bird carolled, although the sun was hot. Marina noted the absence of sound, and without prelude of any kind began to sing from the ballad of the Witch Mother: about the nine enchanted knots, and the trouble-comb in the lady's knotted hair, and the master-kid that ran beneath her couch. Every drop of my blood froze in dread, for whilst she sang her face took on the majesty of one who traffics with infernal powers. As the shade of the trees fell over her, and we passed intermittently out of the light, I saw that her eyes glittered like rings of sapphires.("The Basilisk")” - R. Murray Gilchrist

62. “Charles Lathrop Pack, president of the American Tree Association, told how Rogers gave him advice in handling an educational campaign in tree planting.'Will Rogers told me,' said Pack, 'that I was on the wrong track in trying to educate people to the value of putting idle land to work growing trees. "Pack," he said, "you go down to Washington and get Congress to pass a law prohibiting tree planting and you'll have everybody doing it in a week.” - P.J. O'Brien