Woods Quotes (15 quotes)
… the tender ash / Delays to clothe herself when all the woods are green.
From 'O Swallow, Swallow, Flying South', in The Princess; A Medley (1847), 70.
[Advice to would-be trippers, simply:] Go to the meadows, go to the garden, go to the woods. Open your eyes!
In Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe, Economist Book of Obituaries (2008), 161.
A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here’s health and renown to his broad green crown,
And his fifty arms so strong.
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here’s health and renown to his broad green crown,
And his fifty arms so strong.
First lines from song, 'The Brave Old Oak' (1837). He wrote the words, for music by Henry Russell, published as sheet music. Copy of U.S. printing held by the Library of Congress.
Going to the woods is going home.
In Our National Parks (1901), 98.
I have spent most of my days with wild mountain gorillas. Their home, and mine, has been the misty wooded slopes of the Virunga range, eight lofty volcanoes shared by three African nations, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo … My study of the wild gorilla is not yet finished, and even when it is complete, it will contribute only a small part toward man’s understanding of his closest animal relatives, the great apes…
As quoted on the back cover of Camilla De la Bédoyère, No One Loved Gorillas More: Dian Fossey’s Letters From the Mist (2005), 178.
I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.
In Walden: or, Life in the Woods (1854, 1893), 496.
I pull a flower from the woods,
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath,
And has her in a class.
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath,
And has her in a class.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Walden (1854), 143.
Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Of course, it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all around it: one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.
Address (22 May 1914) to the graduating class of the Friends’ School, Washington, D.C. Printed in 'Discovery and Invention', The National Geographic Magazine (1914), 25, 650.
Much as I admired the elegance of physical theories, which at that time geology wholly lacked, I preferred a life in the woods to one in the laboratory.
From J. Tuzo Wilson, 'Early Days in University Geophysics', Ann. Rev. Earth Planet Sci. (1982), 10, 4.
No matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all the salient facts about any one of them.
In 'April: Sky Dance', A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949, 1987), 32-33.
Sauntering silently among the healthful groves, concerning yourself about every thing worthy a wise and good man?
— Horace
Epistle IV, to Albius Tibullus, translated by Christopher Smart in The Works of Horace (1861), 237. Also seen translated as, “To linger silently among the healthful woods, musing on such things as are worthy of a wise and good man.”
The living and dead look well together in woods. Trees receive a most beautiful burial.
Nature takes fallen trees gently to her bosom—at rest from storms. They seem to have been called home out of the sky to sleep now.
In Linnie Marsh Wolfe (ed.), John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir (1938 1979), 313. Entered in journal while on sled trip exploring Muir Glacier, its boundaries and tributaries; Hemlock Mountain (11-21 Jul 1890).
The wind makes music in the woods, but the tune changes with the seasons.
In 'Why We Should Celebrate Winter Woodland–Not Just the Christmas Tree', The Guardian (12 Dec 2015).
This man, one of the chief architects of the atomic bomb, so the story runs, was out wandering in the woods one day with a friend when he came upon a small tortoise. Overcome with pleasurable excitement, he took up the tortoise and started home, thinking to surprise his children with it. After a few steps he paused and surveyed the tortoise doubtfully.
“What's the matter?” asked his friend.
Without responding, the great scientist slowly retraced his steps as precisely as possible, and gently set the turtle down on the exact spot from which he had taken him.
Then he turned solemnly to his friend. “It just struck me,” he said, “that, perhaps for one man, I have tampered enough with the universe.” He turned, and left the turtle to wander on its way.
“What's the matter?” asked his friend.
Without responding, the great scientist slowly retraced his steps as precisely as possible, and gently set the turtle down on the exact spot from which he had taken him.
Then he turned solemnly to his friend. “It just struck me,” he said, “that, perhaps for one man, I have tampered enough with the universe.” He turned, and left the turtle to wander on its way.
From Benjamin Franklin Lecture (1958) at the University of Pennsylvania, printed as 'The Ethic of the Group', in Robert Ernest Spiller, Social Control in a Free Society (1958), 37. Also in The Firmament of Time (1960), 148. Eiseley states that because he cannot vouch for the authenticity of the story, he would not name the scientist, though he hopes “with all his heart that it is true. If it is not, then it ought to be, for it illustrates well what I mean by a growing self-awareness, as sense of responsibility about the universe.”
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
