I had rather be a Kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same Meeter Ballad-mongers: I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn'd, Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie.
I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity.
I feel most emphatically that we should not turn into shingles a tree which was old when the first Egyptian conqueror penetrated to the valley of the Euphrates.
Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other.
He had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit.