For me, a landscape does not exist in its own
right, since its appearance changes
at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light
and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding
atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.
- Claude Monet
Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves!
- Humbert Wolfe
The sky and the strong wind have
moved the spirit inside me
till I am carried away trembling with joy.
- Uvavnuk
The leaves lay like hands upon the
ground.
When the wind rustles them, they applaud softly.
- Laura E. Stevens
Every dewdrop and raindrop had a
whole heaven within it.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
No cloud above, no earth below,
A universe of sky and snow.
- John Greenleaf Whittier
We are the stars which sing,
We sing with our light;
We are the birds of fire,
We fly over the sky.
Our light is a voice:
We make a road
For the spirit to pass over.
- Algonquin Song of the Stars
Keep your face to the sunshine and
you cannot see the shadow.
- Helen Keller
There are no limits to either time or
distance,
except as man himself may make them.
I have but to touch the wind to know these things.
- Hal Borland
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
Tomorrow be today.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
twisting inland,
the sea fog takes awhile
in the apple trees.
- Michael McClintock
The wind shows us how close to the
edge we are.
- Joan Didion
The fog is rising.
- Emily Dickinson's last words
Although the wind is very powerful
and you can feel its presence, in and of
itself it cannot be seen. You know it is there by its effect on others.
The
great trees, the grasses and waves on the sea bend with its force. If you
are aware of your surroundings, you know it is there long before
you feel it. So it is with the ineffable.
- Author Unknown
Zeus, the father of the
Olympic Gods, turned
mid-day into night, hiding the light
of the dazzling Sun;
and sore fear came upon men.
- Archilochus (c680-c640 BC), Greek poet
Refers to the total solar eclipse
of 6 April 648 BC.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads.
The wind is passing by.
- Christina Rossetti
Love is like dew that falls on both
nettles and lilies.
- Swedish proverb
We all like to congregate at boundary
conditions. Where land meets water.
Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time.
We like to be on one side, and look at the other.
- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
The wind blows hard among the pines
Toward the beginning
Of an endless past.
Listen: you've heard everything.
- Shinkichi Takahashi, Zen Poems of China and Japan,
Lucien Stryk, p. 125
No issue is more compelling than the
air we breathe,
be it hot or cold, be it hawk or human.
- Jack Nicholson
Rainbows apologize for angry skies.
- Sylvia Voirol
The mountain remains unmoved at
seeming defeat by the mist.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Water and Rain - Quotes for Gardeners
Don't knock the weather, nine-tenths of the
people couldn't start a conversation if it
didn't change once in a while.
- Kin Hubbard
But on the twenty-fifth of May, at
sunset, a violent wind howled madly,
Battering and rending my plants;
Rain poured down, Pounding the vines and flowers into the earth.
It was so painful
But as the work of the wind, I have to let it be ...
- Ryokan
Quotes for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,500 Quotes Arranged by Over 120 Topics
Many of the Topics also have Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
The shell must break before the bird
can fly.
- Alfred Tennyson
The inner - what
is it?
if not intensified sky,
hurled through with birds
and deep with
the winds of homecoming.
- Rainer Marie Rilke
Wind is the loving
Wooer of waters;
Wind blends together
Billows all-foaming.
Spirit of man,
Thou art like unto water!
Fortune of man,
Thou art like unto wind!
-
Goethe, 1789
What ideal, immutable Platonic cloud
could equal the beauty and
perfection of any ordinary everyday cloud floating over, say, Tuba
City, Arizona, on a hot day in June?
- Edward Abbey
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Midnight Mass for the Dying Year, 1839.
You know the Zen question, 'The
Bodhisattva of Great Mercy [Avalokitesvara,
or Kannon] has a thousand hands and a thousand eyes; which is the true eye?' I
could not understand this for a long time. But the other day, when I looked at
the
pine trees bending before the cold blasts from the mountain, I suddenly realized
the meaning. You see, all the boughs, branches, twigs, and leaves
simultaneously
bend to the wind with tremendous vigor.
- Two Zen Classics, Translated by Katsuki Sekida, Case 37,
Joshu's Oak Tree
When we inhale, the air comes into
the inner world.
When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world.
The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless.
We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually,
There is just one whole world.
- Shunryu Suzuki
To garden is to open your heart to the sky.
The grandest view from the
garden is the open sky.
To garden in the rain: irresistible
fragrances and fresh air.
- Michael P. Garofalo, Pulling Onions
We saw the strong trees struggle and their plumes
do down,
The poplar bend and whip back till it split to fall,
The elm tear up at the root and topple like a crown,
The pine crack at the base - we had to watch them all.
The ash, the lovely cedar. We had to watch them fall.
They went so softly under the loud flails of air,
Before that fury they went down like feathers,
With all the hundred springs that flowered in their hair,
and all the years, endured in all the weathers -
To fall as if they were nothing, as if they were feathers.
- May Sarton, We Have Seen the Wind, 1938
The Pleasant air and wind,
with sacred thoughts do
feed my serious mind.
- Rowland Watkyns, The Poet's Soliloquy
The substance of the winds is too
thin for human eyes,
their written language is too difficult for human minds,
and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.
- John Muir
I
hear the wind among the trees
Playing the celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Day of
Sunshine
This
is what I have heard
at
last the wind in December
lashing
the old trees with rain
unseen
rain racing along the tiles
under
the moon
wind
rising and falling
wind
with many clouds
trees
in the night wind
-
W. S. Merwin
We had a sunset of a very fine sort.
The vast plain of the sea was marked
off in bands of sharply-contrasted colors: great stretches of dark blue,
others of purple, others of polished bronze; the billowy mountains showed
all sorts of dainty browns and greens, blues and purples and blacks, and
the rounded velvety backs of certain of them made one want to stroke
them, as one would the sleek back of a cat.
- Mark Twain
Everything passes away
— suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence.
The
sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the
shadows of
our presence and our deeds have vanished from the
earth. There is no man who
does not know that. Why, then, will we
not turn our eyes toward the stars? Why?
- Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard
The winds gives me
Enough fallen leaves
To make a fire
- Ryokan
Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky.
When we think of the sky, we tend to look up,
but the sky actually begins at the earth.
- Diane Ackerman
More Quotes
for
Gardeners
Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul
Simplicity
and the Simple Life
Pulling Onions
Quips, Maxims and Observations by Michael P.
Garofalo
Haiku Poetry - Links and References
Cliches for Gardeners and Farmers
The History of Gardening
Timeline
From Ancient Times to the 20th Century
Quotes
for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,500 Quotes, Arranged by 120 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Distributed on the Internet by Michael P. Garofalo
I Welcome Your Comments, Ideas,
Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California
A Short Biography of Mike Garofalo
Air - Quotes for Gardeners, Version 3.3.7.
Cuttings by Michael P. Garofalo
The History of Gardening Timeline
Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong
Valley Spirit Journal by Michael P. Garofalo
Pulling Onions by Michael P. Garofalo
Valley Spirit Photography Gallery