43 Tree Planting Quotes to Inspire You to Grow a Forest

One of my core childhood memories is planting trees with my classmates as part of our graduation requirement. We planted local trees in a forest and mangroves along the seashore where sea turtles lay their eggs. The sense of fulfillment and being one with nature filled our hearts. And to this day, I always support businesses and influencers who initiate tree-planting activities. I hope our list of tree-planting quotes will inspire more people to do the same.

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Best Tree Planting Quotes

Since grade school, we have learned how plants exchange carbon dioxide and turn it into the oxygen we need for life on Earth. Trees are the lungs of our planet, yet we have lost forests to deforestation for decades. 

According to the 2022 edition of The State of the World's Forests (SOFO), deforestation abolished 420 million hectares between 1990 and 2020. While it may have led to developments, it also started a domino effect in the ecosystem, causing climate change and dwindling animal species. To kick things off, here is our selection of our favorite quotes about tree planting to advocate for the solution.

"He who plants a tree. Plants a hope."
- Lucy Larcom

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
- Chinese Proverb

"Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple."
- Martin O’Malley

"To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, to live as a people, we must have trees."
- Theodore Roosevelt

Inspirational Quotes About Planting Trees For Protection and Growth

Trees near the equator reach their full height around 10 to 20 years, and trees further than the equator can mature over 100 years. In short, the trees we plant today will significantly benefit future generations, not us. That's why we should teach children the importance of trees as soon as they start understanding so they can continue caring for what we have planted. 

If the little environmentalists in your family or community have potential ideas, help them apply for the Little Tree Huggers Grant Funding by One Tree Planted. And inspire others with our next selection of motivating quotes about planting trees.

"Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish."
- Munia Khan

"He that plants trees, loves others besides himself."
- Thomas Fuller

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
- Greek Proverb

"When trees burn, they leave the smell of heartbreak in the air."
- Jodi Thomas

"The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardner objected that the tree was slow growing and wouldn't reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'"
- John F. Kennedy

"If a tree dies, plant another in its place."
- Carolus Linnaeus

"People who will not sustain trees will soon live in a world that will not sustain people."
- Bryce Nelson

"I feel a great regard for trees; they represent age and beauty and the miracles of life and growth."
- Louise Dickinson Rich

Metaphorical Quotes About Tree Planting To Ponder

Nature has always positively impacted our mental health and overall well-being. Natural trees are no exception and can even help the whole community. In the 1980s, the Japanese started practicing shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, to meditate and relax.

Trees mean so much in our lives in various ways. Read our next set of tree-planting quotes below that will motivate you to grow one or engage in tree-planting projects.

"I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots."
- Andrea Koehle Jones

"You can’t have the fruits without the roots."
- Stephen Covey

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
- Nelson Henderson

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
- Martin Luther

"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking."
- Wangari Maathai

"Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that."
- Henry Ward Beecher

"A tree falls the way it leans."
- Bulgarian proverb

"Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come."
- Chinese proverb

Other Noteworthy Quotes From Famous People About Planting Trees

One prominent tree lover we should know about is the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his lifetime, he planted thousands of trees on his family estate, became a Chairman of the Forestry Committee of the New York Senate, and developed sustainable ways to use timber.

And after he passed, his legacy continued. The National Park Service has collaborated with other organizations to save much of the historic forest lands the tree farmers built. This section contains some of his more famous quotes about trees alongside other quotes from names you might recognize.

Ancient trees are precious. There is little else on Earth that plays host to such a rich community of life within a single living organism.

~ Sir David Attenborough

This oak tree and me, we're made of the same stuff.

~ Carl Sagan

The significance of the cherry blossom tree in Japanese culture goes back hundreds of years. In their country, the cherry blossom represents the fragility and the beauty of life. It's a reminder that life is almost overwhelmingly beautiful but that it is also tragically short.

~ Homaro Cantu

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

An acorn is just a tree's way back into the ground. For another try. Another trip through. One life for another.

~ Shirley Ann Grau

And see the peaceful trees extend their myriad leaves in leisured dance—they bear the weight of sky and cloud upon the fountain of their veins.

~ Kathleen Raine

Love the trees until their leaves fall off, then encourage them to try again next year.

~ Chad Sugg

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

~ John Muir

Much like a tree, love develops and flourishes all on its own, taking hold of every part of its host.

~ Victor Hugo

In the normal course of events, only gods and poets are allowed to do creative acts, although commoners may get around this limitation if they understand how. One requires not to be a deity or poet to plant a pine tree; all that's required is a shovel.

~ Aldo Leopold

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

~ Kahlil Gibran

Alone with myself The trees bend to caress me The shade hugs my heart.

~ Candy Polgar

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.

~ William Blake