Quotes For Gardeners

 

Community

Friendship


Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

From the Spirit of Gardening Website  

 

 

"Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let's stay here. And by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another."
-  Anne Raver  

 

 

"One of the most delightful things about gardening is the freemasonry it gives with other gardeners, and the interest and pleasure all gardeners get by visiting other people's gardens. We all have a lot to learn and in every new garden there is a chance of finding inspiration - new flowers, different arrangement or fresh treatment for old subjects. Even if it is a garden you know by heart there are twelve months in the year and every month means a different garden, and the discovery of things unexpected all the rest of the year."
-  Margery Fish, We Made a Garden, 1956   

 

 

"With a cultured of mistrust, how do we create community?  How do we find common ground?
Common ground.
Perhaps that is the place to start.  No matter what we think of one another's religious beliefs or practices, we do all stand on the same ground.     

We share the same earth.  The same sun rises and sets on all of us.  Doesn't this transcend our doctrinal differences?
Millennia ago, early people's personified the sun and earth─made deities of them, worshipped them.  Our modern scientific understanding of natural phenomenon makes it unreasonable for us to do that.  But surely we can share their reverence.  Surely we can follow their example of respect for the earth, the air, the water─and be healthier and happier for it.

    If there is a theme that runs through the history of rituals related to the earth's seasons, it is renewal.  The wheel turns and the old season gives way to the new, the old year to the new, the old life to the new.  Each planting of seeds promises new possibilities.  Each harvest brings sustenance for yet another year.  each fallow time regenerates the life of the soil.  The sun deities retreat and return.  The grain goddesses are lost and restored.  The vegetation gods die and rise again.  The cycle of life goes on and on, birth after death after birth.  Perhaps what all the rituals celebrate is this continuity of life, the miraculous natural world that makes it possible, and our abiding connection to it."
-  By Patricia Montley, In Nature's Honor, 2005.    

 

Process Philosophy

 

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"The World is so empty if one thinks only of the mountains, rivers, and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden."
-  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  

 

 

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
-  Nelson Henderson  

 

 

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"Peace, liberty, brotherhood, prosperity and justice for all."  

 

 

 

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"Gardening, I told myself, is the most sociable of hobbies.  The very nature of one's field of activities demands an audience.  No one wants flowers to blush unseen or waste their sweetness."
-  Barbara Cheney, Atlantic Monthly (June 1936)  

 

 

"It's the flock, the grove, that matters. Our responsibility is to species, not to specimens; to communities, not to individuals."
-  Sara Stein, 1998, Noah's Garden  

 

 

"You don't have a garden just for yourself.  You have it to share."
-  Augusta Carter  

 

 

"If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America.   The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic."
-   Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown, 1968, p. 111  

 

 

"You ask how many friends I have? Water and stone, bamboo and pine.
The moon rising over the eastern hill is a joyful comrade.
Besides these five companions, what other pleasure should I ask? "
-  Yon Sun-do (1587-1671), Korean Poet, Sigo  

 

 

"May we all be able to find a government that enables us to create and work for a better life, respect liberty, and pursue happiness.  May be enjoy freedom from religious oppression, and be allowed to speak our minds in a civil manner.  May we avoid hatred, fear, stealing, lying, and fighting for impractical idealistic causes.  We should not enslave people, disrespect the rights of women, and persecute minorities.  Let us encourage gun free zones in our civil society.  Let us cultivate peace, tolerance, patience, and prosperity.  Let us work at our jobs diligently, intelligently, creatively, and with pride.  Let us preserve and protect our environment for future generations.  Let is strive for good health, vitality, and positive mental health.  Let us mind our own business when appropriate, and avoid listening to men with extreme and angry opinions and facile solutions to difficult problems.  Let us encourage kindness, generosity, simplicity, and community cooperation.  May reason and justice be our guides.  May we deliberate calmly and avoid extreme and inflexible opinions.  May we remember and respect the hardworking and decent wise women and men of the past."
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Dependence Day - The Fourth of July

 

 

"Out of gardens grow fleeting flowers but lasting friendships."
-  Beverly Rose Hopper  

 

 

"The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it."
-  Edward Bulwer-Lytton  

 

 

"Quien a buen arbol se arrima, buena sombra le cobija.
He who gets close to a good tree, will have a good shade."
-  Spanish Proverb  

 

 

"Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends."
-  Czech Proverb  

 

 

"How can those who do not garden, who have no lot in the great fraternity of those who watch the changing year as it affects the earth and its growth, how can they keep warm their hearts in winter?"
-  Francis King  

 

 

"A garden is a public service and having one a public duty.  It is a man's contribution to the community."
-  Richardson Wright, Truly Rural, 1922  

 

 

"To know someone here or there with whom you can
feel there is understanding in spite of distances or
thoughts unexpressed - that can make this life a garden."

-  Goethe  

 

 

"A garden is an expression of Man in a state of society."  

 

 

"Friendship is a sheltering tree."
-  Samuel Taylor Coleridge  

 

 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed its the only thing that ever has."
-  Margaret Mead  

 

 

"If your garden was there before you were, chances are it grew out of many other's dreams."   
-  Ferris Cook  

 

 

"... garden books are quite unconscious that besides telling us how to turn our patch of earth into a garden, they are also expressing the way their age looks at the world, the state of their society."
-  Nan Fairbrother, Men and Gardens, 1956, p. 30  

 

 

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life;  and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."
-  Thomas Jefferson  

 

 

"That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees."
-  Marcus Aurelius 

 

 

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."
-  David Viscott  

 

 

"Aren't gardening people the happiest, friendliest, and most generous people you know?  Why do you suppose gardening is the #1 hobby in America?  Why are there so many people across the state waiting in line to become Master Gardeners or joining the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs, individually, as couples, or as a youth? Why are so many millions of dollars spent in gardening retail stores every year?  Gardening touches everyone in some way, be it beauty, color, solitude,
food, memories, therapy, land value, exercise (some of the best), to attract wildlife or just the thrill of making something grow.  It’s a great way to have quality time with your family and friends."
-  The Gardener's Touch   Sonya Robinson  

 

 

"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual.  The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community."
-  William James  

 

 

"I give to thee great gardens, with trees and vines in the temple of Atuma, I give to thee lands with olive trees in the city of On.  I have furnished them with gardeners, and many men to make ready oil of Egypt for kindling the lamps of thy noble temple.  I give to thee trees and wood, date palms, incense, and lotus, rushes, grasses, and flowers of every land, to set before thy fair face."
-  Rameses III, 1155 BCE  

 

 

"With fronds like you, who needs anemones."  

 

 

 

 

"If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees.
If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people."
-  Chinese Proverb   

 

 

"I will say leave a good quarter of the time for feast and celebration or your soul will die."
-  Francois Monnet  

 

 

"The object in America is to avoid contact, to treat all as foes unless they're known to be friends.  Here you have a million crabs living in a million crevices. ...  But the garden's greatest benefit, I feel, as not relief to the eyes, but to make the eyes sees our neighbors."
-  Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks  

 

 

"Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the rose, with sweets in every fold."
-  Oliver Wendell Holmes  

 

 

"Go often to the house of a friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path.  Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow."
-  Swedish Proverbs  

 

 

"Be Not Solitary.  Be Not Idle."  

 

 

"The best things that can come out of the garden are gifts for other people."
-  Jamie Jobb  

 

 

"Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other -- it doesn't matter who it is -- and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other."
-  Mother Teresa  

 

 

Caring, Compassion and Generosity - Quotes for Gardeners  

 

 

"A garden is a friend you can visit any time."  

 

 

"Friends are like the pillars on a porch.  Sometimes they hold you up, sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it's just enough to know that they are standing by."
-  Author Unknown  

 

 

"Friends are flowers in life's garden."  

 

 

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.  True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."
-  George Washington  

 

 

Interdependence   -  Quotes for Gardeners  

 

 

"The purpose of seasonal festivals is periodically to revive the topocosm.  Gaster coined this word from the Greek - topo for place and cosmos for world order.  Topocosm means "the world order of a particular place." The topocosm is the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism - not just the human community but the total community - the plants, animals and soils of the place. The topocosm is not only the actual and present living community but also that
continuous entity of which the present community is but the current manifestation."
-  Dolores La Chapelle, Ritual is Essential  

 

 

"Take out the weeds from some wild spot,
remove each stone that shows,
plant seeds of friendship good and deep,
and tend the plant that grows."
-  Mary Freeman Startzman  

 

 

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"Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the setting sun of life."
-  Jean de La Fontaine  

 

 

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
-  Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1906  

 

"I have been much afflicted again lately by visitors . . . and they gave me to understand that if they had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished long ago - whereas I don't
believe a garden is ever finished.  They have all gone now, thank heaven."
-  Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth & her German Garden, 1898  

 

 

"Gardening can be a compelling cooperative activity.  Your best harvest may be the pleasure you get from working with family and friends. There's never a shortage of things to do, no limit to the lessons that can be learned, especially for children, and there's always plenty of credit to go around, even for the mistakes."
-  Steven Willson   

 

 

"You're giving a part of yourself when you grow a plant and give it to somebody else."
-  Art Scarpa  

 

 

"Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together."
-  Vista M. Kelly  

 

 

"But there's more than just solving the how-to problems. I've often said that if we're going to have a real rural renaissance, I'd just take the solving of the how-to problems for granted.  The first thing I'd provide would be festivals."
-  Ralph Borsodi  

 

 

"If by some chance I woke up tomorrow morning with a crown on my head and a magic wand in  my hand .... I would never pay farmers not to farm. Or dairymen not to raise cattle."
-  Beverly Beckham  

 

 

"Go often to the house of a friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path."
-  Scandinavian Proverb  

 

 

Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative

 

 

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More Quotes

for

Gardeners



Trees

 

Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul

Flowers

Weeds and Weeding

Simplicity and the Simple Life


Pulling Onions
Quips, Maxims and Observations by Michael P. Garofalo

The Essence of Gardening

Working in the Garden

Garden Digest Links

 

Haiku Poetry  -  Links and References

Clichés for Gardeners and Farmers


The History of Gardening Timeline
From Ancient Times to the 20th Century

Short Poems by Mike Garofalo

Seeing and Vision

Beauty in the Garden


Seasons and Time

Comments about this Web Site

Jokes, Riddles and Humor

 


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The Spirit of Gardening

 

 

Quotes for Gardeners

Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Clichés, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 130 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

 

Community  -  Quotes for Gardeners:  Version 4.7

 

 

 

 

The Spirit of Gardening

Quotes for Gardeners

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The History of Gardening Timeline

Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong

Months

Zen Poetry

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Trees