Pruning Quotations

Persecution is as necessary to religion as pruning to an orchard.

The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it - The Territory is worth. Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little timely pruning.

Wakefulness is the only saintliness there is, and sleepiness, unconsciousness, is the only sin there is; all other sins are born out of it. Cut the root, cut the very root! Don't go on pruning the leaves.

Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.

I pluck up the good lissome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory.

I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that I, having tasted the sweetenes, l may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life.

Dr. Johnson ... sometimes employed himself in chymistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, and sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile, should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.

The vinedresser is never nearer the branches then when he is pruning them.