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A tree in its old age is like a bent but mellowed and wise old man; it inspires our respect and tender admiration; it is too noble to need our pity.

— Donald C. Peattie An Almanac for Moderns (1935)

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More quotes by Donald C. Peattie

When a naturalist is thoroughly comfortable and settled, it is time to uproot him.

Flowering Earth (1939)

The fungi are the underworld of plant life, that lives clandestinely, by its unconscious wits, taking to cover in unfavorable times, rioting at another.

Flowering Earth (1939)

Species is but the ideal form; within this idea, within each species, is a diversity of individuality to make the stars look monotonous.

Flowering Earth (1939)

As plantsmen we are interested in the moment when the first plant began. For there was raised the flag of life.

Flowering Earth (1939)

Futile for science to try to discover what the forces of Nature are; it can only discover how they operate.

An Almanac for Moderns (1935)

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Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Donald C. Peattie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.