Dichoso el a¤  rbol que es apenas sensitivo, y ma¤  s la piedra dura porque e¤  sa ya no siente, pues no hay dolor ma¤  s grande que el dolor de ser vivo, ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente. Blessed is the almost insensitive tree, more blessed is the hard stone that doesn't feel, for no pain isgreater than the pain of being alive, and no sorrow more intense than conscious life.

-Dar|¤  o, Rube¤  n pseudonym of Fe¤  lixRube¤  nGarc|¤a Sarmiento
Cantos de vida y esperanza,'Lo fatal' ('Fatalism').

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

-Emerson, RalphWaldo
  The Conduct of Life,'Worship'.

In that sharp light the fields did lie Naked and stone-like; each tree stood Like a tranced woman, bound and stark, Far off the wood With darkness ridged the riven dark. 336

-Freeman,John
  'Stone Trees'.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

-Frost, Robert Lee
  'Birches'.

On a tree bya river a little tom-tit Sang 'Willow, titwillow, titwillow!'

-Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)
  Ko-Ko's song, The Mikado, act 2.

Grau, teurer Freund, ist alleTheorie. Und gru« n  des Lebens goldner Baum. All theory, dear friend, isgrey, but the golden tree of actual life springs ever green.

-Goethe,JohannWolfgang von
  Faust, pt.1,'Studierzimmer'.

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree; For sure then I should grow To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust Her household to me, and I should be just.

-Herbert, George
'Affliction (1)', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

See howAurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colours through the air: Get up, sweet-slug-a-bed, and see The dew-bespangling herb and tree.

-Herrick, Robert
  'Corinna's Going a Maying'.

Do you know out of what the German Empire arose? Out of dreams, songs, fantasies and black-red-gold ribbons† Bismarck merely shook the tree that fantasies had planted.

-Herzl,Theodor
Quoted in Carl E Schorske Fin-de-Sie' c le Vienna (1961), p.165.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

-Jefferson,Thomas
  Letter to W S Smith,13 Nov.

Efficiency†is measured at the extremities.You do not find the efficiency of an army at headquarters, nor of a firminhead office.It isattheremotest pointötheprivate soldier or humble legionary on the distant frontier, the girl at the counter or the branch-office junior salesman öthat the really decisive test of an army or a firm is made.It istherethat all theinstructionand knowledge of relevant facts and procedural disciplines bear fruitöor wither on the tree.

-Jay, SirAntony Rupert
  Management and Machiavelli.

We're going faster and lower than anything out there. And we can bomb the knot off a tree.

-Jensen, Albert D
  On the capabilities of the B-1bomber10 years after its initial development. In the NewYork Times, 4  Jul.

There is more learning in their [Chinese] languagethan in anyother, fromthe immensenumberof their characters. It is only more difficult from its rudeness, as there is more labour in hewing down a tree with a stone than with an axe.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
BOSWELL:JOHNSON:1778  Conversation, 8 May. Quoted in  James Boswell  The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.3.

If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

-Keats,John
  Letter to  John Taylor, 27 Feb.

   When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adamsat under theTree and scratched with a stick in the mould; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devilwhispered behind theleaves,'It'spretty, but is it Art?'

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  'The Conundrum of the Workshops'.

There was once a man who said 'God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there's no-one about in the Quad.' SeeAnonymous 22:51.

-Knox, Ronald Arbuthnot
Attributed. Quoted in Langford Reed Complete Limerick Book (1924). The limericks summarise Bishop George Berkeley's philosophy that everything is dependent at all times on the will of God.

   Our mother Eve, who tasted of the tree, Giving to Adam what she held most dear, Was simply good, and had no power to see.

-Lanyer, Aemilia
Salve Deus Ex Judaeorum,'Eve's  Apology in Defense of Women'.

Pussy said to the Owl,'You elegant Fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?' They sailed away for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows, And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood With a ring at the end of his nose.

-Lear, Edward
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and  Alphabets,'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat'.

'But the longer I live on this CrumpettyTree The plainer than ever it seems to me That very few people come this way And that life on the whole is far from gay!' Said the Quangle-Wangle Quee.

-Lear, Edward
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and  Alphabets,'The Quangle Wangle's Hat'.

The problems of the world, AIDS, cancer, nuclear war, pollution, are, finally, no more solvable than the problems of a tree which has borne fruit: the apples are overripe and theyare fallingöwhat can be done?† What can be done about the problems which beset our life? Nothing can be done, and nothing needs to be done. Something is being doneöthe organism is preparing to rest.

-Mamet, David Alan
  Writing in Restaurants,'Decay: Some Thoughts for  Actors'.