Quotes by Hal Borland

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”

“April is a promise that May is bound to keep.”

“To know after absence the familiar street and road and village and house is to know again the satisfaction of home”

“Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night”

“For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches towards that force beyond. Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand. In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is.”

“A snowdrift is a beautiful thing - if it doesnt lie across the path you have to shovel or block the road that leads to your destination”

Here and there one sees the blush of wild rose haws or the warmth of orange fruit on the bittersweet, and back in the woods is the occasional twinkle of partridgeberries. But they are the gem stones, the rare decorations which make the grays, the browns and the greens seem even more quiet, more completely at rest.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.

In a painful time of my life I went often to a wooded hillside where May apples grew by the hundreds, and I thought the sourness of their fruit had a symbolism for me. Instead, I was to find both love and happiness soon thereafter. So to me [the May apple] is the mandrake, the love symbol, of the old dealers in plant restoratives.

Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.

Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable...the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street...by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese.

Each new season grows from the leftovers from the past. That is the essence of change and change is the basic law.

No winter lasts forever no spring skips its turn.

No Winter lasts forever no Spring skips its turn. April is a promise that May is bound to keep and we know it.

Summer ends and Autumn comes and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.

You cant be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.

Years end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.