25 Acorn Quotes

Acorn quotes are from the unique symbolism of the acorn seed and oak tree.

Acorns are nuts of the oak tree, often called oaknuts. The seed of a tiny acorn can grow into a large oak tree. 

Acorns are also food for many animals and birds, and a habitat for insect larvae. It is also common for people to refer to acorns as a metaphor for growth and vast potential.

Here are some acorn quotes said by notable personalities from around the globe. The article can be a great way to provide children with some valuable life lessons, explained through the example of an acorn.

Popular Acorn Quotes

One tiny acorn seed can create an oak tree, oak trees, and consequently a thousand forests, which shows the creation symbolism of the acorn in quotes.

“Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. Here Ceres’ gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper’s hand.” - Alexander Pope

“I think character never changes; the Acorn becomes an Oak, which is very little like an Acorn to be sure, but it never becomes an Ash.” - Hester Lynch Piozzi

“October arrives in a swirl of fragrant blue leaf smoke, the sweetness of slightly frosted MacIntosh apples, and little hard acorns falling.” - Jean Hersey

“Embryos turn into babies; buds turn into blossoms; acorns turn into oak trees. What is the difference between those things and us? That we can say no…So today, say yes.” - Marianne Williamson

“An acorn would never brag about giving shade.” - Tim Cook

Thought-Provoking Acorn Quotes

“Organic growth is a cyclical process; it is just as true to say that the oak is a potential acorn as it is to say the acorn is a potential oak.

But the process of writing a poem, of making any art object, is not cyclical but a motion in one direction toward a definite end.” - W. H. Auden

“Society as a whole is the deadly enemy of the particular crotchet of each, and solitude is almost the only condition in which the acorn of conceit can grow to the oak of perfect self-delusion.” - Edwin Percy Whipple

“Oak trees come out of acorns, no matter how unlikely that seems. An acorn is just a tree’s way back into the ground. For another try. Another trip through. One life for another.” - Shirley Ann Grau

“After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks.” - Walter de La Mare

“The Law of Divine Compensation posits that this is a self-organizing and self-correcting universe: the embryo becomes a baby, the bud becomes a blossom, the acorn becomes an oak tree. Clearly, there is some invisible force that is moving every aspect of reality to its next best expression.” - Marianne Williamson

“The mind has grown to its present state of consciousness as an acorn grows into an oak, or as saurians developed into mammals.” - Carl Jung

Beautiful Acorn Quotes

Find the most beautiful acorn quotes to motivate you toward greatness, just like the small acorn births the oak tree!

“As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook’s year.” - Mario Batali

“When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.” - Thomas Carlyle

“Schoolchildren and older people like the idea of planting trees. For children, it’s interesting that an acorn will grow into an oak, and for older people it’s a legacy.” - Clive Anderson

“For their entire lives, even before they met you, your mother and father held their love for you inside their hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree.” - Anthony Marra

“Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak.” - George R. R. Martin

“The acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great oak of understanding.” - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Short Acorn Quotes

Looking for short acorn quotes? Here is a list of short acorn quotes that are sure to help you achieve great feats!

“I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.” - Shirley Jackson

“Tall oaks grow from little acorns. The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.” - Susan Mallery

“Acorns were good until bread was found.” - Francis Bacon

“Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.” - Henry Ward Beecher