Roots quotes
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place."
"I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally."
"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."
"We come from God. As the tree from the root and the stream from the spring; that's why we should always be in contact with Him, as the trunk from the root. Because the stream dries up when it is separated from the spring and the tree dies when is uprooted."
"To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside roots — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth."
"The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell."
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
"No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already."
"Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people."
"Whatever you keep hidden in your heart, God manifests in you outwardly. Whatever the root of the tree feeds on in secret, affects the bough and the leaf."
"A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders."
"Therefore once for all this short command is given to you. 'Love and do what you will.' If you keep silent, keep silent by love; if you speak, speak by love; if you correct, correct by love; if you pardon, pardon by love: let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow."
"Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same."
"Ethiopia always has a special place in my imagination and the prospect of visiting Ethiopia attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England, and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African."
"Confidence is at the root of so many attractive qualities - a sense of humor, a sense of style, a willingness to be who you are no matter what anyone else might think or say."
"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings."
"Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots."
"Cultivate the root; the leaves and branches will take care of themselves."
"The average man can't prove most of the things that he chooses to speak of, and still won't research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of"
"It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possess neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth and can be radical."
"The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activity neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."
"Why doesn't constant trampling defeat the dandelion? The key to its strength is its long and sturdy root, which extends deep into the earth. The same priciple applies to people. The true victors in life are those who, enduring repeated challenges and setbacks, have sent the roots of their being to such a depth that nothing can shake them."
"Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'"
"Love should be a tree whose roots are deep in the earth, but whose branches extend into heaven."
