A Quote by Barbara W. Tuchman

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.

Barbara W. Tuchman

Quote Topics

Being Fell Forest Friend Heard None Old Old Friend Other Our Past Primeval Than Tree Which Without

Quote Author

Barbara W. Tuchman
American - Historian
January 30, 1912 - February 6, 1989

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard

Barbara Tuchman

Lik the tree falling in the forest," says Ira. "Huh?" "You know, the old question - if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it really make a sound?" Howie considers this. "Is it a pine forest, or oak?" "What's the difference?" "Oak is a much denser wood; it's more likely to be heard by someone on the freeway next to the forest where no one is.

Neal Shusterman

When I was five, a tree was my best friend. An old peppercorn on Grandpa's little farm. I'd haul myself into its calloused arms and hide from the world in its foliage. Apart from the pleasure of looking down on unsuspecting adults, I could be Robin Hood in a one-tree Sherwood Forest or Johnny Weissmuller in his jungle. I fell out of my friend once while Tarzan-ing. Gashed a large chunk from a leg. Almost 70 years later, there's still a scar.

Phillip Adams

I was in a Rite Aid... and fell into a Christmas tree display. None other than Shia LaBeouf helped me out of it.

Nicole Byer

A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.

Henri Nouwen

How can we have critical thinking without being able to quote and being able to compare what happened in the past? Television is dreadfully unrecorded and unquotable.

Brewster Kahle

There was a wise old owl who sat in a tree The less he spoke the more he heard The more he heard the less he spoke Why can't we be like that wise old owl in the tree? Speech must die to serve that which is spoken.

Paul Ricoeur

What if a tree fell in the forest and no one knew it's biological name? Did it exist?

Richard Louv

Be mine that silent calm repast, A conscience cheerful to the last: That tree which bears immortal fruit, Without a canker at the root; That friend which never fails the just, When other friends desert their trust.

Nathaniel Cotton

I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me - and I didn't hear it.

Steven Wright

The gist of the matter is this: Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence which we hear, an object of vision, or an effluvium which assails our nose, no sooner enters our consciousness than it is drafted off in some determinate direction or other, making connection with the other materials already there, and finally producing what we call our reaction. The particular connections it strikes into are determined by our past experiences and the 'associations' of the present sort of impression with them.

William James

He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.

Donald Miller

The cutting of primeval forest and other disasters, fueled by the demands of growing human populations, are the overriding threat to biological diversity everywhere.

E. O. Wilson

And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down.

Jack London

I think it happens to a lot of people who make music just on a computer by themselves, you don't see the bigger picture. You don't see the forest for the trees. You're looking at every tree so closely, and every tree looks so cool. But you're making a forest, man, you're not making a tree.