Quotes For Gardeners

 

Leisure, Rest, Fallow

 

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo


 

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The end of labor is to gain leisure.
- Aristotle

 

 

 

It is well to lie fallow for a while.
-  Martin Tupper

 

 

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I am once more seated under my own vine and fig tree ... and hope to
spend the remainder of my days in peaceful retirement, making political pursuits
yield to the more rational amusement of cultivating the earth.
-  George Washington

 

 

 

 

The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how
any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes
into a destructive vice.  Our success, our industry, our
habit of work have produced our economic nemesis.  Work
made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our

souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash,
to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.
-   Sam Keen

 

 

 

 

The true object of all human life is play.
Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
-  Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

 

 

The best test of the quality of a civilization is the quality of its leisure.
- Irwin Edman

 

 

 

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear,

and not bothering.
-   Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

 

 

 

 

An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!

James Thomson, 1700-1748, Spring

 

 

 

Leisure is the time for doing something useful.
-  Benjamin Franklin

 

 

 

It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.
- James Thurber

 

 

 

 

The supreme accomplishment is to blur
the line between work and play.
-   Arnold Toynbee

 

 

 

 

I would not exchage my leisure hours
for all the wealth in the world.
-   Comte de Mirabeau

 

 

 

 

We are closer to the ants than to butterflies.
Very few people can endure much leisure.
-  Gerald Brenan

 

 

 

 

Leisure is the most challenging responsibility a man can be offered.
-   William Russell

 

 

 

 

They talk of the dignity of work.   Bosh. 
The dignity is in leisure.
-   Herman Melville

 

 

 

Millions long for immortality who don't know
what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-  Susan Ertz

 

 

 

Hard work doesn't harm anyone,
but I do not want to take any chances.
-  Author Unknown

 

 

 


Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.
-  Thomas Hobbes

 

 

 

 

Few women and fewer men have enough character to be idle.
-  E.V. Lucas

 

 

 

Working in the Garden - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

 

He did nothing in particular, and did it very well.
- W.S. Gilbert

 

 

 

 

Leisure may prove to be a curse rather than a blessing, unless education
teaches a flippant world leisure is not a synonym for entertainment.

- William J. Bogan

 

 

 

The real problem of leisure time is how to keep
others from using yours.
-  Arthur Lacey

 

 

 

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
-   Sydney J. Harris

 

 

 

 

Surely ruminating and lolling, squandering slivers of time
as you ponder on this or that plant; perching about the place
on seats chosen for their essential and individual quality,
are other whole aspects of being a gardener.  Why
shouldn't we?  We sit in other people's gardens,
why not in our own.
-   Mirabel Osler,  The Garden Bench

 

 

 

Play - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

 

Sitting in a garden and doing nothing is high art everywhere.
An important gardening judgment:  When to Do Nothing! 
How can gardening be considered a "leisure time" activity?
The wise gardener knows when to stop.
We garden day by day, bit by bit, breath by breath - our slices of enlightenment.
Not to move either hand - garden zazen.
Pause every so often when gardening to celebrate just breathing.
-   Michael P. Garofalo, Pulling Onions: The Maxims of Gardening

 

 

 

He enjoys true leisure who has time to
improve his soul's estate.
-   Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.
-   William Henry Davies

 

 

 

After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
Murphy's Laws

 

 

 


It is in his pleasure that a man really lives;
it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.
-  Agens Repplier

 

 

 

Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself.
-   Audrey Giorgi

 

 

 

 

I will age ungracefully until I become an old woman in a small garden,
doing whatever the hell I want.
-  Robin Chotzinoff

 

 

 

Sitting in the Garden - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

If bread is the first necessity of life,
recreation is a close second.
-  Edward Bellamy

 

 

 

There is something wrong with my eyesight.
I can see going to work.
-   Teddy Bergeron

 

 

 

 

Spirituality - Quotes for Gardeners

 

 

 

I knew in my heart that I wanted to know the garden intimately, to know all the flowers
in each season, to be there from spring through autumn, digging, pruning, planting,
feeding, rejoicing.  In short, I had fallen in love.
-   Elizabeth Murray

 

 

 

Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to get an early start.
-  Edgar Watson Howe

 

 

 

There can be no high civilization where
there is not ample leisure.
-  Henry Ward Beecher

 

 

 


If you are losing your leisure, look out;
you may be losing your soul.
-   Logan P. Smith

 

 

 

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.
-  Cicero

 

 

 

What a wonderful
day!  No one in the village
doing anything.
-   Shiki

 

 

 

Learn to pause ... or nothing worthwhile will
catch up to you.
-   Doug King

 

 

 

One of the greatest necessities in America
is to discover creative solitude.
-   Carl Sandburg

 

 

 

 

 

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More Quotes

for

Gardeners



Trees

Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul

Flowers

Weeds and Weeding

Simplicity


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 Guides

Cliches for Gardeners and Farmers


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


Short Poems and Haiku by Michael P. Garofalo

Seeing and Vision

Beauty in the Garden


Seasons and Time

Zen Poetry

Comments about this Web Site

Jokes, Riddles and Humor

 

 

Quotes for Gardeners

Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,000 Quotes, Arranged by 105 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

The Spirit of Gardening


 

 

 

 





Distributed on the Internet by Michael P. Garofalo


A Short Biography of Mike Garofalo


I welcome your comments, ideas, and suggestions

Leisure  -  Quotes for Gardeners,  Version 3.3.10.

 


The Spirit of Gardening

Haiku and Zen Poetry

The History of Gardening Timeline

Quotes for Gardeners