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Forests are sacred things …

• The forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself. Nature is not merely created by God, nature is God. Whoever moves within the forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with his entire body, breath sacredness and contain it within himself, drink the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness, open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness. Richard Nelson
• Nature,  Trees

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…. a world of ferns and giant trees …

• There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there’s light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space … then there’s a race — between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space. Terry Pratchett
• Trees

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…that stir our very souls

• It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths. Thomas Cole
• Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes – every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Orison Swett Marden
• We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest, the butterflies, the song of the birds, if we can’t see the stars at night. Thomas Berry
• The soul

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Forest and woods are beautiful

• Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise. George Washington Carver
• Beauty

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Forests bring pleasure and rapture

• There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more. George Gordon Byron
• Pleasure,  Reverence

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Forests awaken universal feelings …

• The forests are the flags of nature. They appeal to all and awaken inspiring universal feelings.  Enter the forest and the boundaries of nations are forgotten.  It may be that some time an immortal pine will be the flag of a united peaceful world.  Enos A. Mills

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…  feelings of awe and wonder

• Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge. William James
• Awe,  Wonder

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Forests refresh and renew us

• There’s nothing like a walk in the forest to clear my mind and get my spirit to calm down and slow down. Any time I get away from the mass of people and find a quiet, solitary spot in nature, be it in the middle of the desert, in the forest, on a beach, or even along a lonely country road, I feel myself being refreshed, revived, renewed.  It’s a wonderful feeling that I don’t search out nearly enough.  Tom Walsh
• The sensitive man can freshen his trust in the ultimate goodness of things from a glowing sunset, can renew his inward peace with a forest walk. Nature lovingly speaks to him, all wordless though she be. Paul Brunton
• To heal mine aching moods, give me God’s virgin woods. Clinton Scollard
• Rest and renewal

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Forests are a sanctuary of stillness and solitude that we’ve lost in the city …

• We in the “developed” world seem to have many auditory strategies that insulate us from the presence of silence, simplicity, and solitude. When I return to Western culture after time in desert, mountain or forest, I discover how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our own thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range. Joan Halifax
• Stillness,  Solitude

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… a sanctuary for the spirit

• Trees can reduce the heat of a summer’s day, quiet a highway’s noise, feed the hungry, provide shelter from the wind and warmth in the winter. You see, the forests are the sanctuaries not only of wildlife, but also of the human spirit.  And every tree is a compact between generations. George Bush
• Keep close to Nature’s heart. Break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. John Muir
• Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter — to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water. Albert Schweitzer
• It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air, that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit. Robert Louis Stevenson
• In the woods, we return to reason and faith. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. Henry David Thoreau
• Going to the woods is going home.  John Muir

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Being in the forest is a spiritual experience

• When walking through a warm and lush forest setting one’s thoughts can easily take flights of fancy. It is not difficult to shed the layers of modern life and find one’s more subtle or primitive beginnings. Somewhere from deep within the spirit and majesty of each single tree steps forth and at once one can find themselves transported to a world of shadow and shade. Morgan La Fey
• Those who are responsive to Nature, and more especially to the beautiful colours released at the sun’s rise and fall, to the silences of woods and forests, or to the ocean’s vast spaciousness, may use such contacts for attempts to get spiritual glimpses. Paul Brunton
• One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us. All one need do is to notice intelligently, if even for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling.  Simon Greenberg
• In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me. John Fowles
• Spirituality

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Forests provide a window to God …

• Whether one sees the world as God’s creation or as a secular mystery that science is on the way to figuring out, there is no denying the beauty and majesty of everything from mountain ranges, deserts, and rain forests to the exquisite details in the design of an ordinary mosquito. Robert C. Solomon
• When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter- twined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place then strike you with the presence of a deity?  Seneca
• God

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… allowing us to connect to God and ourselves …

• Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer. M. Montgomery
• There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but we promise you will find a better connection.
• The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. John Muir
• My roots are in the depths of the woods. Galle
• As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens. Stephen Graham
• Connection

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… a connection we’ve increasingly lost in the cities

• As Americans, we have become comfortable with our environment of concrete, steel, plastics, and artificial fibres, colors, and flavorings to such a degree that many question whether or not we even need to focus on a relationship with the creation. We have lost the desire to seek God and the ability to see God in all things.  And perhaps, we have closed our eyes to the importance of God’s creation as expressed through the forests because we have substituted the wonders of human creation for the wonders of God’s creation.  This form of idolatry should concern us. Susan Drake
• 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. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves.  No wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself. John Muir

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Really see the forest in order to appreciate it

• We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we’re looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us. Charles de Lint
• The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it. Michael Josephson
• Appreciation

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Make the forest your cathedral

• We are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Edward Abbey
• The hills and groves were God’s first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself. John Muir
• The groves were God’s first temples. William Cullen Bryant
• The grove is the centre of their whole religion. It is regarded as the cradle of the race and the dwelling-place of the supreme god to whom all things are subject and obedient. Tacitus
• So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Mikhail Gorbachev
• Forests were the first temples of the Divinity, and it is in the forests that men have grasped the first idea of architecture. Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
• A grove of giant redwoods or sequoias should be kept just as we keep a great or beautiful cathedral. Theodore Roosevelt
• Go walking in the forest
• This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy. Susan Polis Schutz
• Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snow in the field and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature.  Be cold and hungry and weary.  Henry David Thoreau
• A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods. Rachel Carson

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Learn from the forests

• You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. Saint Bernard
• Watch nature, because it is your greatest teacher. It moves and flows and moves on again. There is an incredible beauty out there in the mountains, in the forests, to teach you it’s silence, it’s beauty, it’s humility. Stay aligned to that. Stuart Wilde
• I went into 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 have no lived. Henry David Thoreau
• Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can never learn from books. John Lubbock
• Learning

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Forests teach us how connected everything is

• But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything. Alan Watts
• Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground. William James
• Connectedness

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Forests teach us about embracing the unknown …

• Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. Wendell Berry
• The unknown

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… and the beauty of following our own path

• You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential. Joeseph Campbell
• 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. Follow it up, explore all around it, 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. Alexander Graham Bell
• The world’s a forest, in which all lose their way; though by a different path each goes astray. George Villiers
• Follow your own path

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Forests provide a sanctuary for many living creatures

• The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings. Buddhist Sutra
• Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss. If you peer beneath the bits and pieces of the moss, you’ll see toads, small insects, a whole host of life that prospers in that miniature environment. A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city. Sylvia Earle

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Forests are the lungs of the world

• Our global forests are the lungs of the world and protecting them is fundamental for our survival. When we hand these forests over to future generations, we must be able to say we exercised our stewardship wisely and responsibly. Ed Davey
• Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to the people. Franklin D. Roosevelt

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It’s sad how we’ve raped and pillaged the forests

• 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. Mahatma Gandhi
• Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day. Anton Chekhov
• If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a spectulator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. Henry David Thoreau
• Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more thanit can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools Franklin D.Rooselvelt
• Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers. Peter Singer
• …our culture’s frenzied and mindless assault on the last shreds of nature may not be the wisest course… We’re melting the ice caps, ripping up the rainforest, and vacuuming the oceans of everything that wriggles. George Meyer
• Sadly, it’s much easier to create a desert than a forest. James Lovelock
• We are aware only of the empty space in the forest, which only yesterday was filled with trees. Anna Freud
• Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment. Jane Goodall

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What will happen when the forests are gone?

• We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources … But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted. Theodore Roosevelt
• What will the axemen do, when they have cut their way from sea to sea? James Fenimore Cooper
• If you cut down a forest, it doesn’t matter how many sawmills you have if there are no more trees. Susan George

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We need to protect the forests …

• We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees. Chief Edward Moody
• The world’s forests are a shared stolen treasure that we must put back for our children’s future.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• The forests are dying, the rivers are dying, and we are called to act. To return Earth to harmony is to restore the harmonious principles within ourselves and to act as responsible caretakers – to save the forests and the waters for future generations.   Dhyani Ywahoo
• The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong. John Muir
• Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved. Bill Bradley
• Care for the environment

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… for the sake of humanity and all living creatures

• At first, I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity. Chico Mendes
• A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. Franklin D. Roosevelt

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We need to restore the forests

• Restoration ecology is experimental science, a science of love and altruism. In its attempts to reverse the processes of ecosystem degradation it runs exactly counter to the market system, to land speculation, to the whole cultural attitude of regarding the Earth as commodity rather than community.  It is a soft-souled science.   Stephanie Mills
• … the very process of the restoring the land to health is the process through which we become attuned to Nature and, through Nature, with ourselves. Restoration forestry, therefore, is both the means and the end, for as we learn how to restore the forest, we heal the forest, and as we heal the forest, we heal ourselves.  Chris Maser
• Each generation takes the earth as trustees. We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed. J. Sterling Morton
• Destroying rain forest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal. Edward O. Wilson
• Reforesting the earth is possible, given a human touch. Sandra Postel and Lori Heise

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The forest makes a great metaphor

• The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism. George Jean Nathan
• The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own. Willa Sibert Cather
• Just as a small matchstick can set a huge forest on fire, so does a desire light up the fires of manifestation. Deepak Chopra
• In order to find yourself you need to get lost in the forest of life. Mike Dolan
• Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks. Henry Ward Beecher
• As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family. Chanakya
• We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest. Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Metaphors to live by

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Our souls are dark forests

• Your soul is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees. Marcel Proust
• The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own. Willa Cather
• I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. Friedrich Nietzsche
• The heart of a maiden is a dark forest. Russian Proverb

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• Every day, the dog and I, we go for a tramp in the woods. And he loves it! Mind you, the tramp is getting a bit fed up. Jerry Dennis
• How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
• I am as frustrated with society as a pyromaniac in a petrified forest. Whitney Brown
• If a man is in a forest and there’s no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?
• If a man is talking in the forest and there is no woman there to hear him is he still wrong? Jenny Weber
• If you tell a joke in the forest but nobody laughs was it a joke? Rod Schmidt
• If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke? Steven Wright
• Like arguing with a forest fire.
• Love is like a forest, I think as I kill trees by squandering toilet paper while “decorating” my ex-girlfriend’s front yard. Jarod Kintz
• The No. 1 cause of forest fires is trees. Pat Paulsen
• We need to save the forests. I have a big warehouse we can store them in. Bauvard
• Where do forest rangers go to “get away from it all? George Carlin
• Wood: That remarkable material which burns so easily in a forest and with such difficulty in a fireplace.
• You don’t realise your age until your birthday cake looks like a small forest fire.

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