Feet Planted Quotes & Sayings

My roots are firmly planted in the glory of nature. The soil beneath my feet heartens each step. — Amy Leigh Mercree

Owning land, he mused, being responsible for it. Plowing, planting, tending, watching things grow. Keeping an eye on the sky, sniffing the air for a turn in the weather. Not a life for Grayson Thane, he thought, but imagined some would find it rewarding. There'd been that simple pride of ownership in Murphy Muldoon's walk - a man who knew his feet were planted on his own. — Nora Roberts

The first practice is the practice of undiscriminating virtue: take care of those who are deserving; also, and equally, take care of those who are not. When you extend your virtue in all directions without discriminating, you feet are firmly planted on the path that returns to the Tao. — Laozi

I think you've got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other. — Judi Dench

Once I had feared that telling the truth would be like falling, that love would be like hitting the ground, but here I was, my feet firmly planted, standing on my own. — Rachel Hartman

Hey," He croaked. "You. Arrogant bitch ghost."
"I'm not really into this whole hero thing," Mort said. "Don't have the temperament for it. Don't know a lot about the villain side of the equation, either." He planted his feet,facing the Corpsetaker squarely, his hands clenched into fist at his side.
"But it seems to me, you half-wit, that you probably shouldn't have left a freaking ectomancer a pit full of wraiths to play with. — Jim Butcher

Make sure when you reach for the stars, you keep both feet firmly planted on the ground. — Charles F. Glassman

She started to rise, for she feared Dash might become angry, lose his temper as he had before with Finn, but this Dash, this man who was struggling to find his footing, planted his feet solidly on the deck.
"She married someone else, Finn," he said quietly. "There was no battle to fight once she'd done that. I'd lost, and sometimes when you lose, there is nothing you can do but move on."
Finn sighed and shook his head, the arguments and problems of adults far beyond his ken, but he still persisted, struggling to understand. "Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Move on? After you lost her?"
Again, Dash shook his head. "Nay, I didn't. Not at all."
"'Cause you loved her?"
Dash looked away. "Aye. Without her, I lost my course and sailed about the seas rather like the Dutchman. — Elizabeth Boyle

When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the seafloor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone. — John McPhee

A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world. — George Santayana

A ripple of amusement passed through the gathering. Cass held out his hand and Roxanna held her breath. Would he even charm a mute child? Pensive, Abby studied him before extending her own small hand. He took it, and the music began again, but not before he'd stood her little feet atop his polished boots. Around and around he danced with her, holding on to her hands, her feet firmly planted atop his own. — Laura Frantz

They say a man's inspiration is visual, but for a woman, it's the narrative.
Abandon both the narrative and the visual. Close your eyes, measure your breath.
Dead weight is sloughed off, dust swept away, forms dissolve into one atmosphere.
The rib cage opens, the lungs fill, the breast rises.
Waves sweep up the body on their swell, rocking it rhythmically.
Feet planted, the back arches, the pelvis reaches forward.
Oxygen kindles a flame, sprawling through the belly, and gathering in a warm blaze.
The hand reaches to meet the sensation.
Calligraphy spills from the inkwell.
Open your eyes, sharpen your focus, and exclaim:
There are no separations. — Craig Thompson

I hate sour cream and onion Pringles," I told the dashboard where I had my feet planted until Ruth pushed them down.
"But you love Pringles," Ruth actually rattled the canister.
"I hate sour cream and onion anything. All lesbians do." I blew heaps of bubbles into my milk with the tiny straw that came cellophaned to the carton.
"I want you to stop using that word," Ruth jammed the lid back onto the can.
"Which word? Sour or cream?" I plastic laughed with my reflection in the passenger-side window. — Emily M. Danforth

Throughout the house one could detect the good sense and care of a woman whose feet were planted firmly on the ground. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted
in the air. A Conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest
at the command
of his head. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you. — Robert F. Goheen

Estimated height in feet of a memorial tree planted for George Harrison that died in July after an attack by beetles : 15 — Anonymous

There the black horse stood - his feet planted firm on the ground, afraid to move. His coat was covered in sweat and a stark white rim lined his eyes. All three of us gawked at his sudden silence. The rattling metal gate was now the only sound. — Brittney Joy

For the Christian tradition, the heart's true home is a life rooted in the love of God. Like Lao-tzu and Dorothy both, Christian wisdom about stability points us toward the true peace that is possible when our spirits are stilled and our feet are planted in a place we know to be holy ground. — Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Show me a woman with both feet planted firmly on the ground - and I'll show you a girl who can't get her knickers off. — Kathy Lette

A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth. — Jacques Barzun

I thought of my river, the Afon-Lwydd, that my father had fished in youth, with rod and line for the leaping salmon under the drooping alders. The alders, he said, that fringed the banks ten deep, planted by the wind of the mountains. But no salmon leap in the river now, for it is black with furnace washings and slag, and the great silver fish have been beaten back to the sea or gasped out of their lives on sands of coal. No alders stand now for thy have been chopped as fuel for the cold blast. Even the mountains are shells, groaning in their hollows of emptiness, trembling to the arrows of the pit-props in their sides, bellowing down the old workings that collapse in unseen dust five hundred feet below. Plundered is my country, violated, raped. — Alexander Cordell

But then he would come home ... and he would feel a strange sensation, like his feet growing heavy. It was as if he was sinking back into the root system of this place. And he didn't want to be that Colin anymore, the one planted here, the one pruned to exactly the size and shape everyone expected him to be. — Sarah Addison Allen

I've waited a long time for this," Penny said. "Then this is going to be kind of an anticlimax," Alice said, and she punched him in the face. Boom! Oh my God. It was beautiful, just like in a movie: straight from the shoulder, feet planted, hips rolled, follow-through, the works. Penny never saw it coming. — Lev Grossman

Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they - earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid - From the short story Thailand — Haruki Murakami

And then it struck him what lay buried far down under the earth on which his feet were so firmly planted: the ominous rumbling of the deepest darkness, secret rivers that transported desire, slimy creatures writhing, the lair of earthquakes ready to transform whole cities into mounds of rubble. These, too, were helping to create the rhythm of the earth. He stopped dancing and, catching his breath, stared at the ground beneath his feet as though peering into a bottomless hole. — Haruki Murakami

A person should be buried only half a meter, or two feet, below the surface. Then a tree should be planted there. He should be buried in a coffin that decays so that when you plant a tree on top the tree will take something out of his substance and change it into tree-substance. When you visit the grave you don't visit a dead man, you visit a living being who was just transformed into a tree. You say, "This is my grandfather, the tree is growing well, fantastic." You can develop a beautiful forest that will be more beautiful than a normal forest because the trees will have their roots in graves. It will be a park, a place for pleasure, a place to live, even a place to hunt. — Friedensreich Hundertwasser

It's been said that parents should give their children roots and wings. That was a perfect description of my parents. Even in a wheelchair, my father was a dreamer with his head in the clouds and my mother was the roots with both feet planted firmly on terra quaking firma. — Richard Paul Evans

The man running toward me is not a man, he is a boy. A shaggy-haired boy with a crease between his eyebrows.
Will. Dull-eyed and mindless, but still Will. He stops running and mirrors me, his feet planted and his gun up. In an instant, I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. My eyes squeezed shut. Can't breathe.
The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that's where I aimed it. — Veronica Roth

Rural Reflections
This is the grass your feet are planted on.
You paint it orange or you sing it green,
But you have never found
A way to make the grass mean what you mean.
A cloud can be whatever you intend:
Ostrich or leaning tower or staring eye.
But you have never found
A cloud sufficient to express the sky.
Get out there with your splendid expertise;
Raymond who cuts the meadow does not less.
Inhuman nature says:
Inhuman patience is the true success.
Human impatience trips you as you run;
Stand still and you must lie.
It is the grass that cuts the mower down;
It is the cloud that swallows up the sky. — Adrienne Rich

No matter how great the guy, something always went wrong with her love life. She stupidly longed for a connection to someone. A connection no one could reach. She flew too high, followed her own path, and got lost in the wonders of the world. No one would ever accompany her on wild, exuberant journeys. Least of all a ranger with his feet firmly planted on the ground. — Beth Caudill

She triggered admiration and awe-inspiring hope in him. Hope that she'd share everything with him, would be there by his side on every adventure and ordinary day. She was his one in a million. The one to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground and to set him flying higher than he'd ever gone before — Robin Bielman

Just as a stool requires three legs to stand upright so the taekwondoist must cultivate basic skills, meaningful forms, and effective sparring in order to have both feet firmly planted in the art — Doug Cook

In order to reach for the stars, you must have both feet planted firmly on the ground. — Charles F. Glassman

I fire again and again, and none of the bullets come close.
"Statistically speaking," the Erudite boy next to me-his name is Will-says, grinning at me, "you should have hit the target at least once by now, even by accident." He is blond, with shaggy hair and a crease between his eyebrows.
"Is that so," I say without inflection.
"Yeah," he says. "I think you're actually defying nature."
I grit my teeth and turn toward the target, resolving to at least stand still. If I can't muster the first task they give us,how will I ever make it through stage one?
I squeeze the trigger,hard, and this time I'm ready for the recoil.It makes my hand jump back,but my feet stay planted.A bullet hole appears at the edge of the target,and I raise an eyebrow at Will.
"So you see,I'm right.The stats don't lie," he says.
I smile a little. — Veronica Roth

Show me a girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground and I'll show you a girl who can't put her pants on.
-Annik Marchand — Ann Brashares

You can have whatever you want if you believe in yourself and keep your feet firmly planted in the ground. — A. J. McLean

If your feet are firmly planted on the ground you'll never be able to dance. — Iris Johansen

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stock of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him crying: 'Stetson!
You, who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!-mon semblable,-mon frere! — T. S. Eliot

She had always enjoyed the warm, calming feeling of the sand. It slipped as a silken scarf of liquid sunshine across the surface of her skin. Kayn took one hand and ran it over the surface of the sand, and it shifted as though it had been moved by a light breeze without her hand making contact. Her life now had no room for feet being firmly planted on the ground. She had to allow her mind to take off in flight and accept the impossible. She had to embrace life as a toddler. In a child's world, every breath of life is a mystery; everything had the possibility of being magic. — Kim Cormack

Zane Hollander stood in profile a few feet away. Sophie's breath caught. Up close, he looked like he'd been carved from the most glorious, most gorgeous stone on the planet. His blond hair was straight, on the longer side and sticking up in GQ messiness. Square jaw, high cheekbones, perfect nose. Then he turned and pierced her with ice-blue eyes that knocked her off-balance.
Literally.
She tripped over her own feet and face-planted right into the sand. — Robin Bielman

Living in New York, for me at least, just keeps it very real and keeps my feet firmly planted on the ground. — Tamara Tunie

I'm drawn to the Jewish notion of the soul, nephesh, which is not something preexistent but emergent - forming in and through physicality and relational experience. This suggests that we need our bodies to claim our souls. The body is where every virtue lives or dies, but more: our bodies are access points to mystery. And in some way that barely makes sense to me, I'm sure that we have to have feet planted on the ground, literally and metaphysically, to reach towards what is beyond and above us. — Krista Tippett

The Master said, At fifteen I set my heart upon learning.
At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground.
At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.
At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.
At sixty, I heard them with docile ear.
At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of righ. — Confucius

took the magazine from him and turned it the right way round. There they were again, the images of my childhood: bold, striding, confident, their arms flung out as if to claim space, their legs apart, feet planted squarely on the earth. There was something Renaissance about the pose, but it was princes I thought of, not coiffed and ringleted maidens. Those candid eyes, shadowed with makeup, yes, but like the eyes of cats, fixed for the pounce. No quailing, no clinging there, not in those capes and rough tweeds, those boots that came to the knee. Pirates, these women, with their ladylike briefcases for the loot and their horsy acquisitive teeth. I — Margaret Atwood

It is a simple fact that you can't steal second base if your foot is firmly planted on first. — Irene Rosenfeld

The silver-haired elf woman Yaela had knelt by the side of the grave, taken an acorn from the pouch on her belt, and planted it directly above Wyrden's chest. And then the twelve elves, Arya included, sang to the acorn, which took root and sprouted and grew twining upward, reaching and grasping toward the sky like a clutch of hands. When the elves had finished, the leafy oak stood twenty feet high, with long strings of green flowers at the end of every branch. Eragon had thought it was the nicest burial he had ever attended. — Christopher Paolini

Nosoi?" Percy planted his feet in a fighting stance. "You know, I keep thinking, I have now killed every single thing in Greek mythology. But the list never seems to end."
"You haven't killed me yet," I noted.
"Don't tempt me. — Rick Riordan

Be willing to step outside your comfort zone once in a while; take the risks in life that seem worth taking. The ride might not be as predictable if you'd just planted your feet and stayed put, but it will be a heck of a lot more interesting. — Edward Whitacre Jr.

Words are like seeds, I think, planted into our hearts at a tender age. They take root in us as we grow, settling deep into our souls. The good words plant well. They flourish and find homes in our hearts. They build trunks around our spines, steadying us when we're feeling most flimsy; planting our feet firmly when we're feeling most unsure. But the bad words grow poorly. Our trunks infest and spoil until we are hollow and housing the interests of others and not our own. We are forced to eat the fruit those words have borne, held hostage by the branches growing arms around our necks, suffocating us to death, one word at a time. — Tahereh Mafi

I have no hankerin' for thrills if needs be sought in the heavens. I shall keep my feet firmly planted in contentment. — Quoleena Sbrocca

To ensure that we are leading with our feet firmly planted on the soil of what is, we must live by the seven commandments of current reality:
Thou shalt not pretend.
Though shalt not turn a blind eye.
Thou shalt not exaggerate.
Thou shalt not shoot the bearer of bad news.
Thou shalt not hide behind the numbers.
Thou shalt not ignore constructive criticism.
Thou shalt not isolate thyself.
Attempting to lead while turning a blind eye to reality is like treading water: It can only go on for so long, eventually you will sink. As a next generation leader, be willing to face the truth regardless of how painful it might be. And if you don't like what you see, change it. — Andy Stanley

It was the White Man who spanned the continents of the world with railroads and super highways and electrical power lines. It was the White Man who created the miraculous world of electronics, ushering in the telephone, the radio and television. It was the White Race, who in a combined burst of energy and genius sent rockets to the moon and planted the feet of the White Man on extra-terrestrial territory in the last decade. — Ben Klassen

Stand as I did after throwing the switch, a murderer, a betrayer, but still proud, feet firmly planted on Hyperion's shifting sand, head held high, fist raised against the sky, crying A plague on both your houses! — Dan Simmons

Sibyl, she's not of the earth but of the air. She's like a kite, all her life, darting about in the wind with no one holding onto her string ... You're of the earth ... You have your feet firmly planted on the ground. She's lucky to find someone like that, like you, willing to let her dart about happily in the wind but still keeping her tethered to the ground. — Kristen Ashley

Western dance begins with its feet firmly planted on the ground whereas Butoh begins with a dance wherein the dancer tries in vain to find his feet — Tatsumi Hijikata

Modern man has both feet firmly planted in mid-air — Francis Schaeffer

Generally the men always tried to appear strong; they walked tall, heads upright, arms steady at the sides, and feet firmly planted like trees. Solid, Jericho walls of men. But when they went out in the bush to relieve themselves and nobody was looking, the fell apart like crumbling towers and wept with the wretched grief of forgotten concubines.
And when they returned to the presence of their women and children and everybody else, they stuck hands deep inside torn pockets until they felt their dry thighs, kicked little stones out of the way, and erected themselves like walls again, but then the women, who knew all the ways of weeping and all there was to know about falling apart, would not be deceived; they gently rose from the hearths, beat dust off their skirts, and planted themselves like rocks in front of their men and children and shacks, and only then did all appear almost tolerable. — NoViolet Bulawayo

There is a moment in the history of every nation, when ... the perceptive powers reach their ripeness and have not yet become microscopic: so that man, at that instant ... with his feet still planted on the immense forces of night, converses by his eyes and brain with solar and stellar creation. — Marsilio Ficino

I . . . what do you mean? I don't know any Angelique."
Catherine stared at him in surprise. "Why, Garren, of course you know Angelique, the clerk in my shop in Whitehall?"
Garren planted both hands on the table and pushed to his feet. "Let's go. This is a waste of time." "It says . . ." The seer frowned, as if trying to make out a hazy script.
"It says, 'I'm not going to sleep with you anymore, you faithless bastard. — Cinda Williams Chima

I leaned forward slightly and pulled the lower lid of my left eye down.
"What the f**k?" the stocky, muscular woman behind Tremblay murmured. Not a melee fighter. She stood flat on her feet, planted like a tree, and carried no weapons.
"She's asking you if you can see the care in her eye." Saiman said helpfully. — Ilona Andrews

This is my life, I thought ... I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet? — Abraham Verghese

I promise not to step on you - I only look like a clodhopper," he was saying when Jo reached them. He winked at Ella, who glanced away and blinked, as if surprised that he'd come so close to guessing what she thought.
Jo slid up to the bar behind her sister, planted a stiff arm on the ledge, and raised an eyebrow at him.
He glanced up and saw her.
She expected him to blanche, or bristle, or pretend he'd just forgotten someplace else he had to be. A lot of men did that, when they realized that the girl they thought was alone had brought friends to look out for her.
But instead he only said, "Oh," softly, his smile so wide and earnest that crows'-feet appeared at the edges of his eyes; he smiled as though she was an old friend, as though he had been waiting for Jo a long time and was delighted to see her at last. — Genevieve Valentine

His hands were achingly gentle as he lowered her to the platform, and lingered a second too long after her feet were firmly planted, or not nearly long enough. — Marissa Meyer

I have had my dream - like others
And it has come to nothing, so that
I remain now carelessly
With feet planted on the ground,
And look up at the sky
Feeling my clothes about me,
The weight of my body in my shoes,
The rim of my hat, air passing in and out
At my nose - and decide to dream no more. — William Carlos Williams

i am sending my love to your eyes. may they always see goodness in people. and may you always practice kindness. may we see each other as one. may we be nothing short of in love with everything the universe has to offer. and may we always stay grounded. rooted. our feet planted firmly onto the earth. — Rupi Kaur

I started, squeezing Keir's shoulder. He did not look at me, turning to look at Simus instead. "Simus, I ask that you undertake the protection of the warprize personally. Designate whatever men you need to hold her safe. Once the commotion has started, place the army on alert."

Iften rose at that. "Warlord, it's my place to take charge of the camp, not Joden." He almost spat Joden's name.

Keir almost snarled. "Iften, if you had both feet planted on the earth, were bathed in flames, calling a wind, holding my token, and blessed by rain from the skies, still I would not trust you with my warprize."

Marcus snickered, as did some of the others. Iften turned bright red, but held his tongue. — Elizabeth Vaughan

Overthrow is a nicely judged word. It suggests a wrestler being flung to the mat. That only happens when you move outside your centre of gravity. Your enemy can't throw you if you have your feet firmly planted. Which — M.R. Carey

Charlotte is a city with both feet planted firmly in the New South, with the emphasis on the 'new'. — Harry Hoover