“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”

—  May Sarton

Last update Nov. 26, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself." by May Sarton?
May Sarton photo
May Sarton 26
American poet, novelist, and memoirist 1912–1995

Related quotes

“The garden of life never seems to confine itself to the plot philosophers have laid out for its convenience maybe a few more tractors would do the trick.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Source: Short fiction, Home is the Hangman (1975), p. 149

“Life seems sometimes like nothing more than a series of losses, from beginning to end. That's the given. How you respond to those losses, what you make of what's left, that's the part you have to make up as you go.”

Katharine Weber (1955) American novelist

Source: The Music Lesson

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“Mediocrity triumphs because it presents itself as democratic and because it is dull, and so for many does not seem worth struggling against.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Leveling Britain http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-03-22td.html (March 22, 2007).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Oprah Winfrey photo

“Although there may be tragedy in your life, there's always a possibility to triumph. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
John Irving photo

“In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.”

John Irving book Until I Find You

Source: Until I Find You

Addison Mizner photo

“…teeth set out by a landscape gardener…”

Addison Mizner (1872–1933) American architect

From his sketchbook

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

"Of the Cruelty of Man"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings
Context: Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have killed.
O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible monster.

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“We always thought the living earth was a thing of beauty. It isn’t. Life has had to learn to defend itself against the planet’s random geological savagery.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 28

Iggy Pop photo

“I almost always pee in the yard or the garden, because I like to pee on my estate.”

Iggy Pop (1947) American rock singer-songwriter, musician, and actor

Rolling Stone interview (2003)

Related topics