“Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart.”

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

“Good deeds stand tall like a green pine, evil deeds bloom like flowers;
The pine is not as brilliant as the flowers, it seems.
When the frost comes, the pine will still stand tall,
While the flowers, withered, can be seen no more”

“Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them.”

“It takes too much imagination to see the sorrows of people we take for happy. Their real battles take place, like those of the stars, in some realm of light imperceptible to the human eye. It is a feat of the mind to guess another's heart.”

“Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.”

“Ikenobo Sen'o remarked on another occasion (this too is in his Sayings) that "the mountains and strands should appear in their own forms". Bringing a new spirit into his school of flower arranging, therefore, he found "flowers" in broken vessels and withered branches, and in them too the enlightenment that comes from flowers. "The ancients arranged flowers and pursued enlightenment." Here we see awakening to the heart of the Japanese spirit, under the influence of Zen. And in it too, perhaps, is the heart of a man living in the devastation of long civil wars.”

“A thing which fades
With no outward sign—
Is the flower
Of the heart of man
In this world!”

“When will my soul forget the look
With which one single stem she took
From out the wreath?—a tulip flower;
But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round
The rich but burning heart they bound.”

“Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all.”