
„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
A collection of quotes on the topic of flowers, flower, likeness, love.
„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
„I must have flowers, always, and always.“
— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926
Variant: I must have flowers, always and always.
„Love is the flower you've got to let grow.“
— John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980
„The earth laughs in flowers.“
— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882
„May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.“
— Thich Nhat Hanh Religious leader and peace activist 1926
„With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?“
— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900
„Life is the flower for which love is the honey.“
— Victor Hugo French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802 - 1885
„Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower.“
— Albert Camus French author and journalist 1913 - 1960
As quoted in Visions from Earth (2004) by James R. Miller, p. 126
„Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree.“
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge English poet, literary critic and philosopher 1772 - 1834
„Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.“
— Khalil Gibran Lebanese artist, poet, and writer 1883 - 1931
Total 1312 quotes flowers, filter:
— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009
HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)
„Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.“
— Anne Frank victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary 1929 - 1945
„The lovely flowers
embarrass me.
They make me regret
I am not a bee…“
— Emily Dickinson American poet 1830 - 1886
„There's gonna' be a lotta slow singin' and flower bringin' if my burglar alarm starts ringin.“
— The Notorious B.I.G. American rapper 1972 - 1997
Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Warning"
— Ram Dass American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now 1931 - 2019
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge English poet, literary critic and philosopher 1772 - 1834
Source: The Complete Poems
„I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.“
— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926
— Suman Pokhrel Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist 1967
<span class="plainlinks"> You are, as You are https://allpoetry.com/poem/11313676-You-are--as-You-are--by-Suman-Pokhrel/</span>
From Poetry
— 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.
„If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson British poet laureate 1809 - 1892
— Georgia O'Keeffe American artist 1887 - 1986
O'Keeffe's contribution (1939) to the exhibition catalogue of the show An American place (1944)
1930 - 1950
Source: Georgia O'Keeffe
Context: A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower - the idea of flowers. You put out your hand to touch the flower — lean forward to smell it — maybe touch it with your lips almost without thinking — or give it to someone to please them. Still — in a way — nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small — we haven't time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time... So I said to myself — I'll paint what I see — what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it — I will make even busy New-Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers... Well — I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower — and I don't.
„The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.“
— Mark Nepo American writer 1951
— Robert Jordan, The Shadow Rising
al'Lan Mandragoran to Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 September 1992)
Source: The Shadow Rising
„From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.“
— Edvard Munch Norwegian painter and printmaker 1863 - 1944
Quote in Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors (2007) by William Thompson and Kim Sorvig, p. 30
after 1930
„The flower has no weekday self, dressed as it always is in Sunday clothes.“
— Malcolm de Chazal Mauritian artist 1902 - 1981
Sens-plastique
— Arvo Pärt Estonian composer 1935
Arvo Pärt: 24 Preludes for a Fugue http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358947/ (DVD, 2002)
— Edvard Munch Norwegian painter and printmaker 1863 - 1944
T 2760 (January 1892); as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 119
1880 - 1895
— Francis William Bourdillon British poet 1852 - 1921
" The Chantry Of The Cherubim http://www.bartleby.com/236/219.html" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I walk as one unclothed of flesh,
I wash my spirit clean;
I see old miracles afresh,
And wonders yet unseen.
I will not leave Thee till Thou give
Some word whereby my soul may live!I listened — but no voice I heard;
I looked — no likeness saw;
Slowly the joy of flower and bird
Did like a tide withdraw;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.</p
— Sadhguru, book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
„The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.“
Night, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)
— David Lynch American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor 1946
— Masaru Emoto Japanese writer 1943 - 2014
Source: Secret Life of Water
„There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them“
— Henri Matisse French artist 1869 - 1954
1940s, Jazz (1947)
— Iris Murdoch, book A Fairly Honourable Defeat
A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170.
— David Lynch American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor 1946
„The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.“
— Sylvia Plath American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932 - 1963
— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900
Quoted by Alvin Redman in The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde http://books.google.com/books?id=qUjQAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Keep+love+in+your+heart+a+life+without+it+is+like+a+sunless+garden+when+the+flowers+are+dead+the+consciousness+of+loving+and+being+loved+brings+a+warmth+and+richness+to+life+that+nothing+else+can+bring%22&pg=PA102#v=onepage (1952)
— Honoré de Balzac French writer 1799 - 1850
Une jeune fille est comme une fleur qu'on a cueillie; mais la femme coupable est une fleur sur laquelle on a marché.
Honorine http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Honorine (1845), translated by Clara Bell
— Adam Mickiewicz, book Dziady
Do mamy lecim do mamy! Cóż to, mamo nie znasz Józia? Ja to Józio ja ten samy. A to moja siostra Rózia. My teraz w raju latamy, Tam nam lepiej niż u mamy. Patrz jakie główki w promieniu, Ubiór z jutrzenki światełka, A na oboim ramieniu Jak u motylków skrzydełka, w raju wszystkiego dostatek, Co dzień to inna zabawka, gdzie stąpim wypływa trawka, gdzie dotkniem rozkwita kwiatek. Lecz choć wszystkiego dostatek dręczy nad nuda i trwoga. Ach mamo dla twoich dziatek zamknięta do nieba droga!
Part two.
Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_fore.htm
„One who is blind throws away even a garland of flower placed on his head, thinking it is a snake.“
— Kālidāsa, Abhigyanashakuntalam
Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Sign of Shakuntala)
Original: (sa) स्रजमपि शिरस्यन्धः क्षिप्तं धुनोत्यहिशंकया
— Robert Frost American poet 1874 - 1963
" Fragmentary Blue http://www.ketzle.com/frost/fragblue.htm", st. 1 (1923)
1920s
— Bruce Nauman American artist 1941
Source: Robert C. Morgan (2002). Bruce Nauman, p. 281
„I hate flowers — I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move!“
— Georgia O'Keeffe American artist 1887 - 1986
quote in Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe, Laurie Lisle, Viking Press, New York, 1981, p. 180
1980s
— Mao Zedong Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China 1893 - 1976
" VIII. ON "LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOSSOM LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT CONTEND" AND "LONG-TERM COEXISTENCE AND MUTUAL SUPERVISION" "
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 马克思主义者不应该害怕任何人批评。相反,马克思主义者就是要在人们的批评中间,就是要在斗争的风雨中间,锻炼自己,发展自己,扩大自己的阵地。同错误思想作斗争,好比种牛痘,经过了牛痘疫苗的作用,人身上就增强免疫力。在温室里培养出来的东西,不会有强大的生命力。实行百花齐放、百家争鸣的方针,并不会削弱马克思主义在思想界的领导地位,相反地正是会加强它的这种地位。
— Juan Antonio Villacañas Spanish poet, essayist and critic 1922 - 2001
“Literaturaliae”, from Theme of My Biography (2000)
„You are a cosmic flower. Om chanting is the process of opening the psychic petals of that flower.“
— Amit Ray Indian author 1960
OM Chanting and Meditation (2010) http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/OM_Chanting_and_Meditation.html?id=3KKjPoFmf4YC,
„All the mysteries of consciousness flower in the body.“
— Robert Pinsky American poet, editor, literary critic, academic. 1940
The Art of Poetry - interview 1995 with Downing & Kunitz
— George Linley British writer 1798 - 1865
Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,—probably about 1830. Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the "Magazine for Mariners". That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882.
— Sukirti Kandpal Indian actress 1987
On the need of good looks for success in industry https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tv/news/hindi/My-boyfriend-doesnt-enjoy-watching-my-romantic-scenes-Sukirti-Kandpal/articleshow/20330247.cms/
— Suman Pokhrel Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist 1967
<span class="plainlinks"> Children http://www.occupypoetry.net/children_1/</span>
From Poetry
— 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
— Suman Pokhrel Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist 1967
<span class="plainlinks"> Children http://www.occupypoetry.net/children_1/</span>
From Poetry
„And the flowers sing in D minor
And the birds fly happily.“
— Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994
Spank Thru.
Song lyrics, B-sides and compilation tracks (1989-1993)
— Charles Spurgeon British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist 1834 - 1892
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 294.
— Algernon Charles Swinburne English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic 1837 - 1909
Laus Veneris.
Undated
"At an Old Palace" (《行宫》), in Gems of Chinese Literature, trans. Herbert A. Giles
Variant translations:
Deserted now imperial bowers.
For whom still redden palace flowers?
Some white-haired chambermaids at leisure
Talk of the late emperor's pleasure.
"At an Old Palace", in Song of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, trans. Yuanchong Xu (Beijing: New World Press, 1994), p. 128
The ancient Palace lies in desolation spread.
The very garden flowers in solitude grow red.
Only some withered dames with whitened hair remain,
Who sit there idly talking of mystic monarchs dead.
"The Ancient Palace", as translated by W. J. B. Fletcher in Lotus and Chrysanthemum: An Anthology of Chinese and Japanese Poetry (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1934), p. 107
Original: (zh) 寥落古行宫,宫花寂寞红。
白头宫女在,闲坐说玄宗。
„Cornelia. What flowers are these?
Gazetta. The pansy this.
Cor. Oh, that's for lover's thoughts.“
Act II, scene i.
All Fools (1605)
— Letitia Elizabeth Landon English poet and novelist 1802 - 1838
(14th October 1826) Changes
The London Literary Gazette, 1826