Forest Quotes - page 12
It is possible, in Iran, Greece, North Africa, USA, Mexico, Pakistan, and Australia to see how, in our short history of life destruction, we have brought the hard bones of the earth to the surface by stripping the life skin from it for ephemeral uses. We can, if we persist, create a moon-landscape of the earth. So poor goatherds wander where the lake-forests stood and the forest deities were worshipped. The religions of resignation and fanaticism follow those of the nature gods, and man-built temples replace trees and tree spirits.
Bill Mollison
Peat preserves timber, animals, and such unexpected treasure-troves as hoards of acorns and firkins of beech butter from the forests which preceded the bogs. A whole archaeology may very well lie in peat, and the pollen record may reveal past history. At the base of Irish bogs the Fir Bolg (the little people), their axes, bridges, butter, and forest life are well preserved. They and their forests were banished, as if by magic, by the Tuatha de Danan (the Children of Diana) who now dig the peat. Diana was displaced in turn by Mary, mother of God. But all are mixed in the peat and the tongue of Ireland.
Bill Mollison
He remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,-how the dark forest had whispered to him,-how the stars had gleamed upon him,-a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held as sacred to a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued the base intellectual development which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart.
Nathaniel Hawthorne