Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
Hal Borland
There are no idealists in the plant world and no compassion. The rose and the morning glory know no mercy. Bindweed, the morning glory, will quickly choke its competitors to death, and the fencerow rose will just as quietly crowd out any other plant that tried to share its roothold. Idealism and mercy are human terms and human concepts.
Hal Borland
Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.
Hal Borland
The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.
Hal Borland
For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches towards that force beyond. Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand. In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is.
Hal Borland
root, a stem, a leaf, some means of capturing sunlight and air and making food -- in some, a plant. The green substance of the earth, the chlorophyll, is all summed up in the plants. Without them we perish, all of us who are flesh and blood
Hal Borland
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
Hal Borland
A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart..
Hal Borland
There are no limits to either time or distance, except as man himself may make them. I have but to touch the wind to know these things.
Hal Borland
Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable...the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street...by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese.
Hal Borland