Quotes for Those that Love
Gardens, Gardening and the Green Way
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
In the garden the door is always open into the "holy" - growth, birth, death.
Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle, and in the garden
we are never far away from death, the fertilizing, good, creative death.
- May Sarton
What a pity flowers can utter no sound!—A singing rose,
a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ...
oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!
- Henry Ward Beecher
Every Flower must grow through Dirt.
God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.
- James Matthew Barrie, (1860-1937)
One day when I was young, and walking with a friend, a field dry
as straw bloomed with flowers. "Oh, glory!" we breathed, my good
friend and I, for the flowers blazed like suns and fire and rainbows.
They sprang from folds between hillsides, peeked from pockets of
shade. Spiraling - dancing - they followed us home...
- Maggie Streincrohn Davis, Glory! To the Flowers
A garden of roses is a fragrant piece of heaven.
A garden without roses is a sorry thing.
- Matthew A. R. Bassity
Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.
- Irish Proverbs
Qui pingit florem, floris non pingit odorem.
Who paints the flower does not paint the flower's fragrance.
Flowers seem intended for a solace of ordinary humanity.
- John Ruskin
Some lives, like evening primroses, blossom most
beautifully in the evening of life.
And over one more set of hills, along the sea,
the last roses have opened their factories of
sweetness and are giving it back to the world.
If I had another life I would want to spend it all
on some unstinting happiness.
- Mary Oliver, Roses, Late Summer
The foxglove, with it's stately bells
Of purple, shall adorn thy dells.
- D. M. Moir, The Birth of the Flowers
Won't you come into my garden?
I would like my roses to see you.
- Richard Sheridan
Bloom where you are planted!
- Mary Engelbert
And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow:
they do not worry or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you
that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes
as beautiful as one of these flowers.
- Bible, Matthew 6: 28, 29, &30
I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over
my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it
is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error.
- Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988
Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers
and never succeeding.
- Marc Chagall
Just living is not enough ...
One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
- Hans Christian Anderson
Through primrose tufts,
in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
- William Wordsworth
The flower that follows the sun does so even on cloudy days.
- Robert Leighton (1611-1684)
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be
mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
- Iris Murdoch
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin;
yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
- Bible, Matthew, 6:28-29
There is material enough in a single flower
for the ornament of a score of cathedrals.
- John Ruskin
Open afresh your rounds of starry folds,
Ye ardent Marigolds.
- John Keats
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
- Author Unknown
One flower makes no garland.
- Proverb from Romania
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
- Thomas Gray
The love of flowers is really the best teacher
of how to grow and understand them.
- Max Schling
To see the world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wildflower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour.
- William Blake
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
- William Cowper
When at last I took the time to look into the heart
of a flower, it opened up a whole new world; a world
where every country walk would be an adventure,
where every garden would become an enchanted one.
- Princess Grace of Monaco
'Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone:
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone.
- Sir Thomas Moore
The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones;
they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them.
There is simply the rose. It is perfect in every moment of its existence.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have a garden of my own,
Shining with flowers of every hue;
I loved it dearly while alone,
But I shall love it more with your:
And there the golden bees shall come,
In summer time at the break of morn,
And wake us with their busy hum
Around the Siha's fragrant thorn.
- Thomas Moore, The Casket, 1835
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
- William Blake
What a pity flowers can utter no sound!—A singing rose,
a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ...
oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!
- Henry Ward Beecher
The grape Hyacinth is the favorite spring flower of my garden - but no! I though
a minute ago the Scilla was! and what place has the Violet? the Flower de Luce?
I cannot decide, but this I know - it is some blue flower.
- Alice Morse Earle
To win the trophy of enchanting grace:
Ranks of Carnations, to all ladies dear,
Of whose sweet taste I write approval here,
For these pre-eminent myself I think,
As long as you don't overdue the pink.
- Ruth Pitter, 1897-1992, Other People's Glasshouses, 1941
Every Flower must grow through Dirt.
Just living is not enough ...
One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
- Hans Christian Anderson
Through primrose tufts,
in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
- William Wordsworth
The flower that follows the sun does so even on cloudy days.
- Robert Leighton (1611-1684)
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be
mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
- Iris Murdoch
God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.
- James Matthew Barrie, (1860-1937)
Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.
- Irish Proverbs
Qui pingit florem, floris non pingit odorem.
Who paints the flower does not paint the flower's fragrance.
Flowers seem intended for a solace of ordinary humanity.
- John Ruskin
The Chrysanthemum, the Flower of Happiness, was so revered that in Japan
only the nobles could grow it. It has been grown for over 2,000 years all
throughout in the Far East. It has come to mean love and truthfulness.
We may see it carved on the throne of the Emperor of Japan
and on many Chinese artifacts.
- Flowers: Myths, Legends and Traditions
Some lives, like evening primroses, blossom most
beautifully in the evening of life.
And over one more set of hills, along the sea,
the last roses have opened their factories of
sweetness and are giving it back to the world.
If I had another life I would want to spend it all
on some unstinting happiness.
- Mary Oliver, Roses, Late Summer
The foxglove, with it's stately bells
Of purple, shall adorn thy dells.
- D. M. Moir, The Birth of the Flowers
O frost bitten blossoms,
That are unfolding your wings
From out the envious black branches.
Bloom quickly and make much of the sunshine.
The twigs conspire against you!
Hear them!
They hold you from behind.
- William Carlos Williams, Aux Imagistes, 1914
Won't you come into my garden?
I would like my roses to see you.
- Richard Sheridan
Bloom where you are planted!
- Mary Engelbert
And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow:
they do not worry or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you
that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes
as beautiful as one of these flowers.
- Bible, Matthew 6: 28, 29, &30
I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over
my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it
is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error.
- Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988
Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers
and never succeeding.
- Marc Chagall
One day when I was young, and walking with a friend, a field dry
as straw bloomed with flowers. "Oh, glory!" we breathed, my good
friend and I, for the flowers blazed like suns and fire and rainbows.
They sprang from folds between hillsides, peeked from pockets of
shade. Spiraling - dancing - they followed us home...
- Maggie Streincrohn Davis, Glory! To the Flowers
A garden of roses is a fragrant piece of heaven.
A garden without roses is a sorry thing.
- Matthew A. R. Bassity