“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”

Preface to Mudan Ting dated 1598; in The Peony Pavilion, trans. Cyril Birch (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), p. ix
Context: Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. Love is not love at its fullest if one who lives is unwilling to die for it, or if it cannot restore to life one who has so died. And must the love that comes in dream necessarily be unreal? For there is no lack of dream lovers in this world.

"I Died as a Mineral", as translated in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 125
Variant translation: Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man. During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless. And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.
As quoted in Multimind (1986) by Robert Ornstein
Context: I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.

52 min 20 sec
The First Eden (1987)

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Philosophia Botanica (1751)

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Jnana

Source: Braveheart

[Davis, E. Gene, Get 'Em Laughing: Public Speaking Humor, Quotes and Illustrations, Trafford Publishing, 2007-09-12, 195, 1425114334, 9781425114336]
Attributed