What does find tongues in trees mean from shakespeare?

Answer 1

The quotation is from the Duke in Act II Scene 1 of As You Like It. The Duke is commenting on the fact that his Duchy has been taken away from him and he is forced to live as an exile in the middle of a forest. He says:

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I would not change it."

The idea that toads were venomous but had jewels in their heads was a common belief in the middle ages, of which Shakespeare was aware. What he means is, every cloud has a silver lining.

"But hey!" someone might have said to the Duke, "Out there in the bush, you don't have people to converse with, no books to read and no entertainment. It must be very boring." The Duke says that even though they are far away from people ("public haunt") they still have conversation, books and entertainment in nature: the wind in the trees is like people speaking, the streams can be read like books and the stones contemplated like sermons. That's why he says that their life "finds tongues in trees"; he means that you don't need human conversation if you have nature.