Strange Tree

Famous quotes containing the words strange and/or tree:

    Ideals possess the strange quality that if they were completely realized they would turn into nonsense. One could easily follow a commandment such as “Thou shalt not kill” to the point of dying of starvation; and I might establish the formula that for the proper functioning of the mesh of our ideals, as in the case of a strainer, the holes are just as important as the mesh.
    Robert Musil (1880–1942)

    Even when seen from near, the olive shows
    A hue of far away. Perhaps for this
    The dove brought olive back, a tree which grows
    Unearthly pale, which ever dims and dries,
    And whose great thirst, exceeding all excess,
    Teaches the South it is not paradise.
    Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)