Flowers I
Flowers II
Flowers III
Flowers IV
Flowers V
"The Kingdom of Flowering Plants holds
a special compassion
for human travail. Because of this, the essences of flowers support
us with a special compassion through our earthbound transformation.
Flower essences contain the vibratory qualities of the flowers,
and are made by infusing the flower into spring water
under sun or moon light."
- Flowers
of the Soul.
"Daffy-down-dilly came up in the cold,
Through the brown mould
Although the March breeze blew keen on her face,
Although the white snow lay in many a place."
- Anna Warner, Daffy-Down-Dilly
"Some lives, like evening primroses, blossom most beautifully in the evening of life.".
brilliant yellow
border of daffodils
behind barbed wire
- Michael P. Garofalo, Cuttings.
"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.
"Another thing much too commonly seen, is an
aberration of the human mind which
otherwise I should have been ashamed to warn you of. It is technically called
carpet-gardening. Need I explain it further? I had rather not, for when I
think of
it, even when I am quite alone, I blush with shame at the thought."
- William Morris, Hope and Fears for Art, 1860.
"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.
"Science, or para-science, tells us
that geraniums bloom better
if they are spoken to. But a kind word every now and then is
really quite enough. Too much attention, like too much feeding,
and weeding and hoeing, inhibits and embarrasses them."
- Victoria Glendinning, Green Words, 1986.
"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.
"Every child is born a naturalist. His eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life."
"The
'Amen!' of Nature is always a flower."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Eighty percent of the world's rose species come from Asia..
"Don't
try to force anything. Let life be a deep let-go. See [God/Spirit/All That Is] opening millions of flowers
every day without forcing the buds."
- Bhagwan Shree Rayneesh.
"To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music;
it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy,
than to attempt to fully understand."
- Henry T. Tuckerman.
"In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends."
- Kozuko Okakura.
"I didn't know the names
of the flowers - now
my garden is gone."
- Allen Ginsberg.
"The gardens that make us
happiest flourish because we have taken the time to make sure
they feed our souls and fill a special place in our lives. Sometimes you have to
think about
what you really want from your garden ...
once the beds are laid out and the rose bushes planted."
-
Lindley Karstens.
"You love the roses - so do
I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!"
- George Eliot, Roses.
"In the 1600's, a language of flowers
developed in Constantinople and in the poetry of Persia. Charles II introduced the Persian poetry to Europe, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought the flower language from Turkey to England in 1716. It spread to France and became a handbook of 800 floral messages known as the
Book Le Language des Fleurs. Lovers exchanged messages as they gave each other selected flowers or bouquets. A full red rose meant beauty. Red and white mean unity. Crocus said "abuse not", while a white rosebud warns that one is too young for love. Yellow roses were for jealousy, yellow iris for passion, filbert for reconciliation and ivy for marriage."
- Valentine's Day
Love Traditions.
"The nature
of This Flower is to bloom."
- Alice Walker.
"The actual flower is the plant's highest
fulfillment, and are not here
exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plant geography: they are here first of all for delight.
- John Ruskin.
"To create a little flower is the labor of ages."
- William Blake.
"Flowers have a
mysterious and subtle influence upon the feelings, not unlike some strains of music. They relax the tenseness of the mind. They dissolve its vigor."
- Henry Ward Beecher.
"As a flower that is lovely,
Colourful, and fragrant
Even so fruitful is the well-spoken word
Of one who practises it.
As from a heap of flowers
Many kinds of garlands can be made,
So many good deeds should be done
By one born a mortal.
The perfume of flower blows not against the wind,
Nor does the fragrance of sandal-wood, tagara and jasmine,
But the fragrance of the virtuous blows against the wind.
The virtuous man pervades all directions."
- Buddhist
Sutra.
"A lonely tulip
Dying on the dirt filled road
Never waking up"
- Allison Borowick.
"Gardens and flowers
have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes."
- Clare Ansberry, The Women of Troy Hill.
Leaping from the Ledge of Infinite
Regress,
The Unmoved Mover fell into Formlessness:
Pure silence echoed between the galaxies,
Eons of eons vanished in a second,
Withered trees bloomed in fires,
Polar mountains melted, rivers went dry,
Thusness scattered in sixty directions,
Space became Time, time became things,
Black Holes filled with Nirvana,
A billion samadhi mirrors shattered,
Galaxies snuggled within a single skull,
Many became One, One only, only One.
Then, the Divine Illuminatrix in All Beings
Opened Her clouded Eye, to see:
Flowers in the Sky.
- Michael P. Garofalo, Emptiness
in Full Bloom.
"An angel, legend has it, took pity on a
little shepherd girl who had
nothing to give to the Infant Jesus in his manger. The angel handed
her a weed, but first transformed it into this beautiful flower of winter... the Christmas rose, Helleborus niger.
- Allen Lacy, The Gardener's Eye, 1991, p. 14.
"What a desolate place would be a
world without flowers. It would be a face
without a smile; a feast without a welcome. Are not flowers the stars
of the earth? Are not our stars the flowers of heaven?"
- Clara L. Balfour.
"In my garden there is a large place for
sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my
garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers,
and the dreams are as beautiful."
- Abram L. Urban.
"When a daffadill I see,
Hanging down his head towards me,
Guess I may, what I must be:
First, I shall decline my head;
Secondly, I shall be dead:
Lastly, safely buryed."
- Herrick, Hesperides
"The lily was created
on the third day, early in the morning when the Almighty was especially full of good ideas."
- Michael Jefferson-Brown.
"As a plant produces its flower,
so the psyche creates its symbols."
- Carl G. Yung.
"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.
"To Nature the dweller in the Nile
valley linked all that
was dear to him: his happiest fetes, poetry, and love -
all were bound up with the garden and its products,
especially flowers. Few Oriental nations can think of
a festival without flowers, but nowhere are they so
completely a part of human life, and so essential,
as in [Ancient] Egypt."
- M. L. Gothein, A History of Garden Art, 1928.
"One flower makes no garland."
- Proverb from Romania.
"and the gray Sunflower poised against the
sunset,
crackly bleak and dusty with
the smut and smog
and smoke of olden locomotives
in its eye--
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like
a battered crown, seeds fallen
out of its face,
soon-to-be-toothless mouth of
sunny air, sun-
rays obliterated on its hairy
head like a dried
wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures
from the sawdust root, broke
pieces of plaster
fallen out of the black twigs,
a dead fly in its ear,
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O
my soul, I loved you then!
- Allen Ginsberg, Sunflower
Sutra.
"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.
"The largest single flower is the Rafflesia
or "corpse flower". They are
generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.
No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is
absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially."
- Plants and Botany
Trivia.
"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.
"The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose,
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose,
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose,
You, of course, are a rose -
But were always a rose."
- Robert Frost, 1875-1963.
"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.
"Correct handling of flowers
refines the personality."
- Bokuyo Takeda.
"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.
"And these memories and associations
that our flowers give us are independent
of seasons or of age. They come to us as well in autumn and winter, in spring
and summer; and as to age, the older we get the more, from the very
nature of things, do these memories increase and multiply."
- Canon Ellacombe, In a Gloucestershire Garden, 1895.
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Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores |
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"I haven't much time to be fond of anything . . . But when I have a moment's fondness to bestow, most times . . . the roses get it."
- William Wilkie Collins.
What kind of flowers do you give to
King Tut?
Chrysanthemummies.
"The original Greek meaning of the
word anthology is
a collection or gathering of flowers in bloom."
- Jane Garmey.
"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.
"A garden of roses is a fragrant piece
of heaven.
A garden without roses is a sorry thing."
- Matthew A. R. Bassity.
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