The short conversation that follows eventually led to a tree religion. Its tenet of faith was this: a tree that was a good tree and led a clean decent and upstanding life could be assured of a future life after death. If it was very good indeed it would eventually be reincarnated as five thousand rolls of lavatory paper.
Interpretation
The quote humorously suggests that even trees have a moral compass and the potential for reincarnation based on their goodness.
In this whimsical take on religion and morality, Pratchett imagines a belief system where trees are judged for their character and lead to a humorous afterlife as lavatory paper, symbolizing their worth based on virtue. It reflects on the interconnectedness of life and the absurdity often found in moral judgments, pushing us to consider the value of all living things in a lighthearted manner.
In practice
In a discussion about life and ethics, this quote can add a lighthearted perspective on how we value nature.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.
Can you look forward to the future of our country and imagine any state of things in which, with slavery still existing, we should be assured of permanent peace? I cannot.
Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.
When your inner mantra becomes 'How may I serve?' rather than 'What am I going to get?' and 'Who do I need to defeat?,' you start to see the unfolding of God in everything and everyone around you and you shift into higher consciousness.
Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full._x000D_ _x000D_ Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull._x000D_ _x000D_ The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,_x000D_ _x000D_ Made me want to leave my only home tonight._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ I'm just wondering how we know where we belong_x000D_ _x000D_ Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn_x000D_ _x000D_ In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn_x000D_ _x000D_ Singing in between here and gone
Racism is not just slavery and Jim Crow. It is the daily violence that is enacted on our communities each and every day we live in this White supremacist society.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.