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leaf quotes

  • And the dove came to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Genesis 8:11.

  • Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.But his delight is in the law of the L; and in his law doth he meditate dayand night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in hisseason; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodlyare not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDPsalms1:1^4.

  •    How true it is, that there isnothing dead inthis Universe; that what we call dead is only changed, its forces working in inverse order! 'The leaf that lies rotting in moist winds,'says one,'has still force; else how could it rot?'

    -Thomas Carlyle
      History of the French Revolution, vol.2, bk.3, ch.1.

  • Right as an aspes leef she gan to quake.

    - Geoffrey Chaucer
    c.1385  Troilus and Criseyde, bk.3, l.1200.

  •   Love all God's creation, thewhole of it and every grainof sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's lights. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.

    -James Harold Doolittle
    ^80  The Brothers Karamazov, bk.6, ch.3.

  • And he that will go to bed sober, Falls with the leaf still in October.

    - Dario Fo
      The Bloody Brother, act 2, sc.2, song (with Ben  Jonson, George Chapman and Philip Massinger).

  • Where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. Keats

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Hyperion', bk.1, l.10.

  • World, world, I cannot get thee close enough! Long have I known a glory in it all, But never knew like this; Here such a pattern is As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year: My soul is all but out of melet fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

    - Edna St Vincent Millay
      God's World.

  • November's sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear.

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Marmion, canto1, introduction.

  • So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower, No more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower, Of manya lady, and many a paramour: Gather therefore the rose, whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower: Gather the rose of love, whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst love'  d be with equal crime.

    - Edmund Spenser
      The Faerie Queen, bk.2, canto12, stanza 75.

  • Poetry is a rich, full-blooded whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbers the leaf, the duet of two nightingales, the sweet pea, that has run wild,Creation's tears in shoulder blades.

    -Wallace Stevens
    Quoted in Life,13 Jun1960.

  • If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowered closes, Green pleasure or grey grief.

    - Algernon Charles Swinburne
      Poems and Ballads,'A Match'.

  • The last red leaf is whirled away, The rooks are blown about the skies.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto15, l.3^4.

  • I believea leafof grass isno lessthanthejourney-workof the stars.

    -Walt(er) Whitman
      Leaves of Grass,'Song of Myself', section 31.

  • One by one the objects are defined It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entranceStill, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken.

    -William Carlos Williams
      Spring and All,'Spring and All'.

  • O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole? O body swayed to music,O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'Among School Children', stanza 8. collected in TheTower (1928).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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