Quotes about flowers

„Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.“

—  Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

„Each bud flowers but once and each flower has but its minute of perfect beauty; so, in the garden of the soul each feeling has, as it were, its flowering instant, its one and only moment of expansive grace and radiant kingship.“

—  Henri-Frédéric Amiel Swiss philosopher and poet 1821 - 1881

30 December 1850
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: Each bud flowers but once and each flower has but its minute of perfect beauty; so, in the garden of the soul each feeling has, as it were, its flowering instant, its one and only moment of expansive grace and radiant kingship. Each star passes but once in the night through the meridian over our heads and shines there but an instant; so, in the heaven of the mind each thought touches its zenith but once, and in that moment all its brilliancy and all its greatness culminate. Artist, poet, or thinker, if you want to fix and immortalize your ideas or your feelings, seize them at this precise and fleeting moment, for it is their highest point. Before it, you have but vague outlines or dim presentiments of them. After it you will have only weakened reminiscence or powerless regret; that moment is the moment of your ideal.

„My mother named me after a miracle of nature: Waris means desert flower. The desert flower blooms in a barren environment where few living things can survive.“

—  Waris Dirie, book Desert Flower

Source: Desert Flower

„What about sunrise, what about rain?
What about all the things that you said we were to gain?
What about flowering fields, is there a time?
What about all the dreams that you said was yours and mine?“

—  Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009

HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)

„One loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss perhaps.“

—  W.B. Yeats Irish poet and playwright 1865 - 1939

Source: The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

„When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.“

—  Ram Dass American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now 1931 - 2019

„Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches, and here is my heart which beats only for you.“

—  Paul Verlaine French poet 1844 - 1896

„I don't work that way. Part of it has to do with an idea of beauty. Sunsets, flowers, landscapes: these kinds of things don't move me to do anything. I just want to leave them alone. My work comes out of being frustrated about the human condition. And about how people refuse to understand other people. And about how people can be cruel to each other. It’s not that I think I can change that, but it’s such a frustrating part of human history“

—  Bruce Nauman American artist 1941

Source: Robert C. Morgan (2002). Bruce Nauman, p. 281

„I just stepped out of the dark, still forest and found myself on a rising hill. In front of me I saw a valley, surrounded by fertile hills, in which a town stood and the newly covered slate roof of the tower glowed in the evening light. Through the richly-flowered, carpeted meadow the river meandered... And behind the hills lay the mountains.... cliff after cliff rose far out into the horizon... Filled with soaring joy I stood there a long time and looked at the beautiful area..“

—  Caspar David Friedrich Swedish painter 1774 - 1840

Quote from Friedrich's Diary-note, 1803; as cited by C. D. Eberlein in C. D. Friedrich - Bekenntnisse, pp. 72-73; translated and quoted by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston Branden Press Publishers, 1978, p. 45
1794 - 1840

„In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty.“

—  Kabir Indian mystic poet 1440 - 1518

Songs of Kabîr (1915)
Context: Do not go to the garden of flowers!
O Friend! go not there;
In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty.

„If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning… Face it, friend. He is crazy about you!“

—  Max Lucado American clergyman and writer 1955

„Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it.“

—  William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

„stay together
learn the flowers
go light“

—  Gary Snyder American poet 1930

„You're lovely as a flower,
So pure and fair to see;
I look at you, and sadness
Comes stealing over me.“

—  Heinrich Heine German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic 1797 - 1856

Du bist wie eine Blume,
So hold und schön und rein;
Ich schau dich an, und Wehmut
Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
Du Bist Wie eine Blume, st. 1

„You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.“

—  Robert Jordan American writer 1948 - 2007

Source: Starscape Boxed Set B Mixed

„I must have flowers, always, and always.“

—  Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

Variant: I must have flowers, always and always.

„The bee and the serpent often sip from the selfsame flower.“

—  Pietro Metastasio Italian poet and librettist (born 3 January 1698, died 12 April 1782) 1698 - 1782

L'ape e la serpe spesso
Suggon l'istesso umore;
Part I.
Morte d' Abele (1732)

„Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.“

—  Daisaku Ikeda Japanese writer 1928

„Thought
is a flower from other worlds, a tale
that is torn in each written word.
……………I go outdoors
to give rest
to the soul’s tired muscles.“

—  Juan Antonio Villacañas Spanish poet, essayist and critic 1922 - 2001

“Literaturaliae”, from Theme of My Biography (2000)