A Quote by James Russell Lowell

Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.

James Russell Lowell

Quote Topics

Doomsday Falls Fools Roof Think Tree

Quote Author

James Russell Lowell
American - Poet
February 22, 1819 - August 12, 1891

On opening sentences: "If in the first chapter a hurricane is going to blow down an oak tree which falls through the kitchen roof, there's no need to first describe the kitchen."

James Thayer

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer

There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.

Betty Smith

Lao Tsu uses the anology of the tree. The old hard tree breaks and falls when the wind blows. The young tree bends and does not break. He advises us to bend and not to break.

Frederick Lenz

I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up.

Mary Cassatt

It is the privilege of the rich To waste the time of the poor To water with tears in secret A tree that grows in secret That bears fruit in secret That ripened falls to the ground in secret And manures the parent tree Oh the wicked tree of hatred and the secret The sap rising and the tears falling.

Stevie Smith

The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.

Leonardo da Vinci

There are three kinds of fools in this world, fools proper, educated fools and rich fools. The world persists because of the folly of these fools.

Narayanananda Swami.

There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly . . . survives without sun, water, and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.

Betty Smith

The earth is all the home I have, the heavens my wide roof-tree

William Edmondstoune Aytoun

Upon the hearth the fire is red, Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet, Still round the corner we may meet A sudden tree or standing stone That none have seen but we alone. Tree and flower and leaf and grass, Let them pass! Let them pass!

J. R. R. Tolkien

Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold? The tree says to the leaf: "That’s the cycle of life. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me. It’s thanks to you that I’m alive, because I can breathe. It’s also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing.

Paulo Coelho

We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.

P. G. Wodehouse

Y is for YGGDRASIL. The legendary Nordic ash tree with its three roots extending into the lands of mortals, giants, and Niflheim, the land of mist, grows in Wisconsin. Legend has it that when the tree falls, the universe will fall. Next Wednesday, the State Highway Commission comes through that empty pasture with a freeway.