Trees have been a source of inspiration to mankind throughout history, reflected in a wealth of references in literature, poetry, mythology, mysticism and religion across all 7 continents. Below are a selection of quotations, sayings and jokes, all of which share a common thread - that of celebrating the tree.

“He plants trees to benefit another generation.”
Caecilius Statius

“ Forest sources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological and spiritual human needs of the present and future generations”
Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro 1992

“Trees are your best antiques”
Alexander Smith

“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

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.”

William Blake 

“The groves were God’s first temples.”
William Cullen Bryant

“Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in the summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the exception of a moose singing ‘Embraceable You’ in spats.”
Woody Allen

“A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.”
Welsh Proverb

“He who plants a tree, plants a hope.”
Lucy Larcom

“I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.”
Ogden Nash

“I was a vegetarian until I started leaning towards sunlight.”
Rita Rudner

“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

“Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.”
Chinese proverb

“The best friend on earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully
and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the earth.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

“As the poet said 'Only God can make a tree' - probably because it’s so hard to get the bark on.”
Woody Allen

“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realise that we cannot eat money.”
Cree Indian Proverb

“A tree never hits an automobile except in self-defense.”
American Proverb

“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.”
Bill Vaughan

“What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants the friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven anigh
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard -
The treble of heaven's harmony
These things he plants who plants a tree.”
Henry Cuyler Bunner, The Heart of the Tree

“I am the heat of you hearth, the shade screening you from the sun;
I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table; I am
the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead; the wood of
your cradle, and the shell of your coffin. I am the gift of God and
the friend of man.”
Author Unknown

“Trees are the best monuments that a man can erect to his own memory.
They speak his praises without flattery, and they are blessings to children yet unborn.”
Lord Orrery, 1749

“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets.
To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel.”
Aldo Leopold

“God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!"“
Joseph Campbell