Roots Quotes

No risk is more terrifying than that taken by the first root. A lucky root will eventually find water, but its first job is to anchor -- to anchor an embryo and forever end its mobile phase, however passive that mobility was. Once the first root is extended, the plant will never again enjoy any hope (however feeble) of relocating to a place less cold, less dry, less dangerous. Indeed, it will face frost, drought, and greedy jaws without any possibility of flight. The tiny rootlet has only once chance to guess what the future years, decades -- even centuries -- will bring to the patch of soil where it sits. It assesses the light and humidity of the moment, refers to its programming, and quite literally takes the plunge.

~ Hope Jahren

In my mind, I could sense their roots under the soil, creeping in helical tangles of ever-increasing complexity outward and in all directions—out beyond the perimeter of the Helsingør Wood, out below Yami’s Under City, out along the banks of the river, out to the nearest coast and thereupon out into the sea; the roots crept down further along the continental shelf, downward into the abysses, downward into the ocean floor, burrowing under the corals and under trenches, and then back up again to sprout in the darkened forest on a foreign continent: all the trees of the world now had conjoined roots, for they were now of one conjoined consciousness!

~ Ashim Shanker

Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of paper confections, Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and gathered,Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation without it

~ Arthur Hugh Clough

The one thing that's going to get you through this business is having strong roots, being grounded and knowing what is true.

~ Sally Hawkins

I think it has other roots, has to do, in part, with a general anxiety in contemporary life... nuclear bombs, inequality of possibility and chance, inequality of goods allotted to us, a kind of general racist, unjust attitude that is pervasive.

~ Leonard Baskin

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It's my belief that, since the end of the Second World War, psychology has moved too far away from its original roots, which were to make the lives of all people more fulfilling and productive, and too much toward the important, but not all-important, area of curing mental illness.

~ Martin Seligman

It's been really cool to me to watch someone like Sam Hunt, whose lyrics and roots are in country but you can hear that he listens to Drake and Justin Timberlake - and that's OK. It allows songwriters to be more honest because it's like, 'This is who I'm listening to.'

~ Kelsea Ballerini

My roots were in acting. That's all I wanted to be. Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

~ Albert Brooks

It is true that the Internet can be used to disseminate falsehoods quickly, but it just as quickly roots them out and exposes them in a way that the traditional model of journalism and its closed, insular, one-way form of communication could never do.

~ Glenn Greenwald

Nobody roots for Goliath.

~ Wilt Chamberlain

Not many countries establish a prize for peace. The Seoul Peace Prize has its roots in the 1988 Summer Olympics when this country opened its doors to people and athletes from more than 160 countries. Korea did so in part because it believes in the power of sports for peace and development.

~ Ban Ki-Moon

The perception of the horizon is an earthbound event; all horizons disappear in space, and we are left shorn of the sweet roots that have held us to the earth, challenged to imagine what is truly present just before us, a unified and seemingly limitless universe.

~ Eugene Kennedy

Words have life and must be cared for. If they are stolen for ugly uses or careless slang or false promotion work, they need to be brought back to their original meaning - back to their roots.

~ Corita Kent

The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.

~ D. H. Lawrence

I knew, of course, that trees and plants had roots, stems, bark, branches and foliage that reached up toward the light. But I was coming to realize that the real magician was light itself.

~ Edward Steichen

That the caste system must be abolished if the Hindu society is to be reconstructed on the basis of equality, goes without saying. Untouchability has its roots in the caste system. They cannot expect the Brahmins to rise in revolt against the caste system. Also we cannot rely upon the non-Brahmins and ask them to fight our battle.

~ B. R. Ambedkar

My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

~ Ray Charles

We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Following 9/11, intelligence indicated numerous links between al-Qa'eda and Algeria. It began to look as though the roots of jihad could be traced back to the war in Algeria that began 50 years ago.

~ Alistair Horne

We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots religion, nation, community, family, or profession are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust.

~ Alvin Toffler

Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

~ Alex Haley

You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I like to put it, and find the tribe or ethnic group that I was from in Africa.

~ Henry Louis Gates

A lasting architecture has to have roots.

~ I. M. Pei

Food for us comes from our relatives, whether they have wings or fins or roots. That is how we consider food. Food has a culture. It has a history. It has a story. It has relationships.

~ Winona Laduke

The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.

~ Harold Taylor

You know, sometimes I feel well and vital in the world, and sometimes I just feel so distressed I want to pull my hair out by the roots.

~ Sharon Stone

The intersection of political analysis and Internet theory is a busy crossroad of cliche, where familiar rhetorical vehicles - decentralized authority, emergent leadership, empowered grass roots - create a ceaseless buzz.

~ Gary Wolf

My father is 100% Japanese and came to the United States when he was only 18 years old. My grandmother still resides in Japan, which has allowed me to travel to the roots of my ancestors with my father.

~ Apolo Ohno

When our forefathers put down roots in desolate places, the thing that allowed them to survive was that they had a faith to see them through the tough times.

~ Lee Greenwood

The earth is rocky and full of roots; it's clay, and it seems doomed and polluted, but you dig little holes for the ugly shriveled bulbs, throw in a handful of poppy seeds, and cover it all over, and you know you'll never see it again - it's death and clay and shrivel, and your hands are nicked from the rocks, your nails black with soil.

~ Anne Lamott

It's funny as I get older I'm reverting to my roots - I want to plant stuff.

~ Melissa Mccarthy

Acquaintances we meet, enjoy, and can easily leave behind; but friendship grows deep roots.

~ H. Jackson Brown

I belong in America more than South Africa. I can't remember the feeling of living there anymore. It's like it was in another life. That's sad in a way. It is my country. It's where I grew up. You don't know what it's like to have these negative feelings about your homeland. There are roots you can't escape.

~ Trevor Rabin

I'm really in touch with my Italian roots. My mom's whole side of the family is there.

~ Alessia Cara

Rebellion has its roots in government's indifference and incompetence.

~ Mike Barnicle

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

~ Aristotle

All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.

~ Saint Teresa Of Avila

I tell my kids and my grandkids, 'Never forget where you came from. Never forget your roots.' My grandkids, they didn't go through the hard times as much as other ones in our family did. One thing is to just never forget where you came from and you never forget that nothing is more important than your relationship with Jesus Christ.

~ Kay Robertson

A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.

~ Ivan Turgenev