The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
Wretched are those who are vindictive and spiteful.
Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
A stricken tree, a living thing, so beautiful, so dignified, so admirable in its potential longevity, is, next to man, perhaps the most touching of wounded objects.
As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree,' probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
Yet, so far from laboring to know the forbidden tree of worldly pleasures and its various fruits, man gives himself up to a careless and thoughtless state of life, and yields to the lust of the flesh, not considering that this lust is really the forbidden tree.
O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!
Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.
Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.