Kat Blehm > Kat's Quotes

“Why does an apple fall when it is ripe? Is it brought down by the force of gravity? Is it because its stalk withers? Because it is dried by the sun, because it grows too heavy, or because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it? None of these is the cause.... Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
― Joe Klaas, The Twelve Steps to Happiness: A Practical Handbook for Understanding and Working the Twelve Step Programs for Alcoholism, Codependency, Eating Disorders, and Other Addictions

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Age only slows down those who never had the courage to walk at their own pace..”
― Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

“Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die”
― Matsuo Bashō

“A leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Trees have long been trying to reach us. But they speak on frequencies too low for people to hear.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“To solve the future, we must save the past. My simple rule of thumb, then, is this: when you cut down a tree, what you make from it should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Earth will be monetized until all trees grow in straight lines, three people own all seven continents, and every large organism is bred to be slaughtered.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Life will cook; the seas will rise. The planet’s lungs will be ripped out. And the law will let this happen, because harm was never imminent enough. Imminent, at the speed of people, is too late. The law must judge imminent at the speed of trees.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“A tree is a wondrous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it. And with those words, she has her book’s end.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Trees know when we are close by. The chemistry of their roots and the perfumes of their leaves pump out change when we're near...when you feel good after a walk in the woods, it may be that certain species are bribing you”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Deforestation: a bigger changer of climate than all of transportation put together.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Do you believe human beings are using resources faster than the world can replace them?”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Who does the tree-hugger really hug, when he hugs a tree?”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Wilderness is gone. Forest has succumbed to chemically sustained silviculture. Four billion years of evolution, and that’s where the matter will end. Politically, practically, emotionally, intellectually: Humans are all that count, the final word. You cannot shut down human hunger. You cannot even slow it. Just holding steady costs more than the race can afford.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Tagore said, Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“It's a funny thing about capitalism: money you lose by slowing down is always more important than money you've already made.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Yesterday’s political criminals are on today’s postage stamps!”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Plant-blind. Adam's curse. We only see things that look like us.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Maybe it's useful to think of forests as enormous spreading, branching, underground super-trees.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“His hand goes out, gesturing toward the conifers. It amazes me how much they say, when you let them. They're not that hard to hear. The (other) man chuckles. We've been trying to tell you that since 1492.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“When removed from their kind, individual human beings can change in remarkable ways.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“I never knew how strong a drug other people are.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“I'll sue for everything they're worth. But all the rights and privileges of fair practice are theirs. Humankind is a thug. The law is a goon.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“If you’re holding a sapling in your hand when the Messiah arrives, first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Messiah.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“CONTROL KILLS CONNECTION HEALS”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory