Unbending Quotes

A tree that is unbending, is easily broken.
- Lao Tzu

Related topics: Wisdom Flexibility Acceptance

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles,
the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
- Everett Dirksen

Great talents are the most lovely
and often the most dangerous
fruits on the tree of humanity.
They hang upon the most slender twigs
that are easily snapped off.
- Carl Jung

To know God, watch a butterfly return to the same tree -
after a year and a thousand miles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
- Khalil Gibran

Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh, for the touch of a hand
and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

One day Alice came to a fork in the road
and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
"Which road do I take?" she asked.
His responses was a question: "Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
- Lewis Carroll

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree
is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
- Burton Hills

If you plan for a year, plant a seed.
If for ten years, plant a tree.
If for a hundred years, teach the people.
When you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest.
When you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests.
- Kuan Chung

Fear is the root of the tree of suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I never saw a discontented tree.
They grip the ground as though they liked it,
and though fast rooted, they travel about as far as we do.
- John Muir

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

I am a plain ordinary magnificent creation of God,
just like every other plain ordinary
mountain, ocean, tree, animal, and human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be not like the sugarcane -
do not hold your sweetness inside.
Be like the fruit tree -
be generous with your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie (inspired by Tagore)

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree
is connected with that of man.
- Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever hugged a tree?
Hug a tree, and one day you will come to know
that it is not only that
you have hugged the tree
but that the tree also responds,
the tree also hugs you.
- Osho

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil
is no freedom for the tree.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore.
There is always something to make you wonder
in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.
- Albert Schweitzer

Pause to appreciate the beauty around you.
Whether rainbow or butterfly,
mountain or tree, painting or poem -
whether crafted by nature or by a human hand -
beauty adds a magical element to life
that surpasses logic and science.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
- Albert Einstein

Cloud Animals: Be a Child Again.
I remember warm summer afternoons,
laying in the shade of a maple tree in the back yard
of my Connecticut home watching the clouds for hours.
As those clouds formed dragons and foxes, clowns and angels,
I traveled across space and time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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.
- John Muir

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson

Faith:
When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:
...
There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly
- Patrick Overton - from his book of poems: The Leaning Tree, 1975
[Widely mis-attributed to Barbara J. Winter, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and others]

We are born believing.
A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Silence is a source of great strength.
- Lao Tzu

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Where there is great love,
there are always miracles.
- Willa Cather

To the young child, all life is a great adventure -
when did we grow so dull and brittle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

About leadership: No person can be a great leader
unless he takes genuine joy
in the successes of those under him.
- W. A. Nance

The really great secret - Happiness is free.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The magic words for a great relationship are,
"I love you just the way you are."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Character is higher than intellect.
A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
- John D. Rockefeller

Small opportunities are often
the beginning of great enterprises.
- Demosthenes

That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones,
as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.
- Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Great works are performed not by strength,
but by perseverance.
- Samuel Johnson

In this life we cannot do great things.
We can only do small things with great love.
- Mother Teresa

From small beginnings come great things.
- Anonymous

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy

One of the surest ways to cause
yourself great suffering
is to insist upon being right -
to demand that all others view life
exactly as you view it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!
- Dr. Seuss

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

After climbing a great hill,
one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
- Nelson Mandela

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt
to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell

Do the difficult things while they are easy
and do the great things while they are small.
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
- Lao Tzu

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. -
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

A great man is always willing to be little.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is a great big canvas,
and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
- Danny Kaye

Little strokes,
Fell great oaks.
- Benjamin Franklin

The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu

Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Albert Einstein

The only good luck many great men ever had was
being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
- Channing Pollock

No great thing is created suddenly.
- Epictetus

Keep courage. Whatever you do,
do not feel sorry for yourself.
You will win in a great age of opportunity.
- Richard L. Evans

Dare to dream of your great success.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks
in great and honorable courses
with a sure hope and trust in itself.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Confidence is the most important single factor in this game,
and no matter how great your natural talent,
there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.
- Jack Nicklaus

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Great men or men of great gifts
you shall easily find,
but symmetrical men never.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie