Shovel, Hoe, Hose, Mower, Shear,
Walls
Spade, Post-Hole Digger, Knife, Trowel, Machines
Quotes
... Links ... References
He that would perfect his work must first
sharpen his tools.
- Confucius
You'll never have a garden - a garden
needs walls and you have no walls.
- Russell Page
There is a lovable quality about the actual
tools. One feels so kindly to the thing
that enables the hand to obey the brain. Moreover, one feels a good deal of
respect for it; without it the brain and the hand would be helpless.
- Gertrude Jekyll
Toward seven o'clock every morning, I leave
my study and step
Out on the bright terrace; the sun already burns resplendent
Between the shadows of the fig tree, makes the low wall of coarse
Granite warm to the touch. Here my tools lie ready and waiting,
Each one an intimate, an ally: the round basket for weeds:
The zappetta, the small hoe with a short haft ...
There's a rake here as well, at at times a mattock and spade,
Or two watering cans filled with water warmed by the sun.
With my basket and small hoe in hand, facing the sun, I
Go out for my morning walk.
Herman Hesse, Hours in the Garden, An Idyll, 1952
The piece of equipment I'm most found
off is my telescope.
The other night I had a superb view of the moon.
- Arthur C. Clarke, 1998
The mind has exactly the same power
as the hands:
not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.
- Colin Wilson
Everything passes, everything wears
out, everything breaks.
(tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse)
- French Proverb
It is only necessary that man should
start a fence that Nature
should carry it on and complete it. The farmer cannot plow
quite up to the rails or wall which he himself has placed, and
hence it often becomes a hedgerow and sometimes a coppice.
- Henry D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1851
Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled
his lands,
And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side,
Thou art a tool of honor in my hands,
I press thee, through a yielding soil, with pride.
- William Wordsworth
I first read classical and
modern Western and Eastern philosophers when I was fifteen,
and have since considered myself a person with a humanistic, pragmatic, secular,
and
philosophical outlook on most matters. I have been content to use reasoning
and science
to help me solve most of my problems. Like most people, I make room for
mystical,
mythical, poetic, and symbolic viewpoints when dealing with many artistic,
psychological and values issues.
- Mike Garofalo
Men have become the tools of their
tools.
- Henry David Thoreau
Your first job is to prepare the
soil. The best tool for this is your neighbor's
motorized garden tiller. If your neighbor does not own a garden tiller,
suggest that he buy one.
- Dave Barry
Technology is a gift of God.
After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of
God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.
- Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions
The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human
life are usually simple.
A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is
hay.
Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing
it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All
we
know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was
known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important
technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages.
- Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions, 1988
If it breaks, it needed
replacing anyway.
Lowery's Law
If nobody uses it, there's a
reason.
Rule of Reason
No other farm machine of this century
has had such a profound effect on
American agriculture as the farm tractor.
- C. H. Wendel, Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors,
1979
Knee: a device for finding rocks in your
garden.
The end of the garden is at the end of the hose.
Lawnmower: a magic wand for making teenagers disappear.
- Michael Garofalo, Pulling Onions
When the planes still swoop down and
aerial spray a field in order to kill
a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce.
- Paul Hawken
I'm struck by the insidious,
computer-driven tendency to take things out of
the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental
activity.
The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they
represent
several million years of accumulated finesse.
- Brian Eno, musician and composer, Wired 1/99, p. 176
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
Technology, in short, cannot teach me
how to do without technology.
- Pico Iyer
We must never be to busy to take time
to sharpen the saw.
- Stephen R. Covey
Men can't be trusted with pruning shears any
more than they can be trusted with
the grocery money in a delicatessen ... They are like boys with new
pocket knives
who will not stop whittling.
- Phyllis McGinley
It is only when they go wrong that
machines remind you how powerful they are.
- Clive James
Learning how to operate a soul
figures to take time.
- Timothy Leary
Why are husbands like lawn
mowers?
They are difficult to get started, emit foul smells, and don't work half the time.
- Female Humorist unknown
A powerful hand lens [Eschenback
Leutchlupe] with a focused beam of light opens up
an entire world below the threshold of the ordinary experience of seeing.
- Allen Lacy, The Gardener's Eye, 1992, p. 23
A beautiful blossom is a fleeting thing
It stays for a moment and then takes wing:
With special rays we catch it ere flight
So all may enjoy the beautiful sight.
- Albert Richards, Floral Radiographs: The Secret
Garden
Technology is the knack of so
arranging the world
so that we don't have to experience it.
- Max Frisch
Tickle it with a hoe and it will
laugh into a harvest.
- English saying
Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
Anthony's Law of Force
Inanimate objects are classified
scientifically into three categories:
those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost.
- Russell Baker
My good hoe as it bites the ground revenges
my wrongs, and I have less lust to bite my enemies.
In the smoothing the rough hillocks, I smooth my temper.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Buddha, the Godhead, resides
quite as comfortably in the circuits
of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at
the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise
is to demean the Buddha-- which is to demean oneself.
- Robert M. Pirsig
People, like nails, lose their
effectiveness when
they lose direction and begin to bend.
- Walter S. Landor
If all else fails, read the directions.
The difference between heaven and
hell is which side of the pitchfork you're on.
- Rev. Sheldon de Wehr
Touching - Quotes for Gardeners
Walls are so necessary for gardens,
that even to multiply them, I make as
many little gardens as I can in the neighborhood of the great one, whereby
I have not only all-fruits or espaliers and shelter, which is very considerable;
but am also thereby enabled to correct some defects and irregularities
which render the garden disagreeable.
- De La Quintinye
It is easier to pull down than to
build up.
- Latin proverb
So deeply is the gardener's instinct implanted in my soul,
I really love the tools with
which I work - the iron fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake, the trowel, and the
watering pot are pleasant objects in my eyes.
- Celia Thaxter
A razor may be sharper than an ax,
but it cannot cut wood.
African, Annang, proverb
Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new
instrument. The native intellectual powers of men in different times are not so much
the
causes of the different success of their labours, as the peculiar nature of the means
and artificial resources in their possession.
- Sir Humphrey Davy
Enough shovels of earth - a
mountain. Enough pails of water - a river.
- Chinese proverb
Duct tape is like the Force. It
has a light side,
a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
- Carl Zwanzig
Hide not your talents. They for use
were made.
What's a sundial in the shade.
- Ben Franklin
Never worry about theory as long as
the machinery
does what it's supposed to do.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque
recurret.
You can drive out nature with a pitchfork but she always returns.
- Horace
Nature does not complete
things. She is chaotic. Man must finish,
and he does so by making a garden and building a wall.
- Robert Frost
The nail that sticks out is hammered
down.
Japanese proverb
More about the need for conformity than about tools, although conformity is a tool of
society.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
We have to understand that the world
can only be grasped by action
not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye...
The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
- Jacob Bronowski
Links and References
Art & Crafts The Best Source on the Net!!
Catalogs for Free!!
Garden Buildings Garden and storage sheds, garages, workshops, greenhouses, conservatories, summerhouses, gazebos, sunrooms, cabins and chalets.
Garden Digest Links (79K+)
Gardening, Home, Handiman, Crafts and Cooking Magazines. Save from 20% to 60%.
Green Magazine for John Deere Enthusiasts
Hardware.com
The History of Gardening - Links and References
Outdoor Decor Weathervanes, signs, birdfeeders, fountains, birdbaths, gauges, sculpture.
Pruning. By Robert Kourik. With illustrations by Jim Anderson. New York, Workman Publishing, 1997. 170 pages. ISBN: 0761108068.
Tools of the Earth: The Practice and Pleasures of Gardening. By Jeff Taylor. Photographs by Rich Iwasaki. Chronicle Books, 1998. 176 pages. ISBN: 0811819094. Humorous and telling observations about the tools in our backyards: wheelbarrows, hoes, spades, auger, hammock, etc.. Buy this Book Today!
Yahoo's list of companies that sell garden tools.
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 2,000 Quotes, Arranged by 105 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
Tools - Quotes for Gardeners: Version 3.3.5..