Quotes about blossom

A collection of quotes on the topic of blossom, flowers, flower, life.

Quotes about blossom

Anaïs Nin photo

“The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Oscar Wilde photo
Khalil Gibran photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
José Rizal photo

“Filipinos don't realize that victory is the child of struggle, that joy blossoms from suffering, and redemption is a product of sacrifice.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"Como se gobiernan las Filipinas" (How one governs in the Philippines), published in La Solidaridad (15 December 1890)

Sadhguru photo
Tamora Pierce photo

“You're an obnoxious canker-blossom. Go ooze somewhere else.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children
José Rizal photo

“Genius has no country. It blossoms everywhere. Genius is like the light, the air. It is the heritage of all.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

Toast to the artists Juan Luna and Felix Hidalgo: Madrid, Spain (25 June 1884)

Friedrich Schiller photo
Marcel Proust photo
Sadhguru photo
Ruth Ozeki photo
Christina Rossetti photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Bashō Matsuo photo

“Describe plum-blossoms?
Better than my verses… white
Wordless Butterflies”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: Japanese Haiku

Christopher Paolini photo
John Keats photo

“TO COME HOME TO YOURSELF May all that is unforgiven in you Be released. May your fears yield Their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you Blossom into a future Graced with love.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Invocations and Blessings

Wang Wei photo

“Red beans come from Southern country,
Few blossoms on vines when Spring comes.
For my sake please pick many of them,
They are the best symbol of true love.”

Wang Wei (699–759) a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman

"Red Beans" (相思), trans. Zi-chang Tang

Mao Zedong photo

“Marxists should not be afraid of criticism from any quarter. Quite the contrary, they need to temper and develop themselves and win new positions in the teeth of criticism and in the storm and stress of struggle. Fighting against wrong ideas is like being vaccinated -- a man develops greater immunity from disease as a result of vaccination. Plants raised in hothouses are unlikely to be hardy. Carrying out the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend will not weaken, but strengthen, the leading position of Marxism in the ideological field.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

" 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。

C.G. Jung photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Patañjali photo

“When the mind maintains awareness, yet does not mingle with the senses, nor the senses with sense impressions, then self-awareness blossoms.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

§ 2.54
Yoga Sutras of Patañjali

Bruce Lee photo
Jean-François Lyotard photo
Thomas Mann photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
William Dean Howells photo

“Her mouth is a honey-blossom,
No doubt, as the poet sings;
But within her lips, the petals,
Lurks a cruel bee that stings.”

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) author, critic and playwright from the United States

The Sarcastic Fair

William Shakespeare photo

“On a day — alack the day! —
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air”

Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, II. Not to be confused with The Sonnets; this poem is not a sonnet

W.B. Yeats photo

“All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1649/, st. 1
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“What is our duty? To struggle so that a small flower may blossom from the dunghill of our flesh and mind.”

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: Humanity is such a lump of mud, each one of us is such a lump of mud. What is our duty? To struggle so that a small flower may blossom from the dunghill of our flesh and mind.
Out of things and flesh, out of hunger, out of fear, out of virtue and sin, struggle continually to create God.

W.B. Yeats photo

“Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.”

Among School Children http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1437/, st. 8
The Tower (1928)
Context: Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Manly P. Hall photo
Alexandra David-Néel photo
James Allen photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Zafar Mirzo photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“I would blossom if I were a rose.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: The Lamp and the Bell

Tony Kushner photo
Tony Kushner photo
Louis De Bernières photo
Robin Jones Gunn photo
Robert Burns photo
Meg Cabot photo
Joanne Harris photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
John Muir photo

“Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: The Mountains of California

“May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Alison Croggon photo

“Drunk with beauty, I tore down
Armfuls of blossoms.
How desolate the marred sky!”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

Source: The Naming

Margaret Atwood photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“I said to the almond tree: "Speak to me of God."
and the almond tree blossomed.”

The Fratricides (1964)
Source: Report to Greco

Joris-Karl Huysmans photo

“I seek new perfumes, ampler blossoms, untried pleasures.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Source: Against Nature

Li Bai photo
Edna St. Vincent Millay photo
E.E. Cummings photo

“Friends are "annuals" that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a "perennial" that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Source: Family - The Ties that Bind...And Gag!

Charles Bukowski photo
Khushwant Singh photo
Alexandre Dumas photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo
Oprah Winfrey photo

“You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Robert Jordan photo
Porphyrios Bairaktaris photo
Robert Seymour Bridges photo
William Morris photo
David Brewster photo
Johann Gottfried Herder photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Epitaph on an Infant
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“The apple blossoms' shower of pearl,
The pear tree’s rosier hue,
As beautiful as woman's blush,
As evanescent too.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Henry Kirke White photo
Ono no Komachi photo

“So much I have learned:
the blossom that fades away,
its color unseen,
is the flower in the heart
of one who lives in this world.”

Ono no Komachi (825–900) Japanese poet

Source: Helen Craig McCullough's translations, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985), p. 174

Yasunari Kawabata photo
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo
Eleanor Farjeon photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Richard Henry Horne photo

“The laurel-tree grew large and strong,
Its roots went searching deeply down;
It split the marble walls of Wrong,
And blossomed o'er the Despot's crown.”

Richard Henry Horne (1802–1884) English poet and critic

The Laurel Seed; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 439.

Nathaniel Hawthorne photo

“Let the black flower blossom as it may!”

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XIV: Hester and the Physician

Joseph Joubert photo
Li Yu (Southern Tang) photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo
James Shirley photo

“Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.”

sc. iii. Compare: "The sweet remembrance of the just Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust", Tate and Brady, Psalm cxxii.
The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses

Russell Crowe photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Eino Leino photo

“Outbursts blossom in Lapland rapidly
. in earth, in barley, grass, dwarf birches too.
This I have pondered very frequently
when people’s daily lives there I review.

Oh why are all our beautiful ones dying
and why do great ones rot in disarray?
Oh why among us many minds are losing?
Oh why so few the kantele now play?

Oh why here everywhere a man soon crashes
like hay when scythed – ambitious man indeed,
a man of honour, sense – it all soon smashes,
or breaks apart one day in life of need?

Elsewhere, a fire still glints in greying tresses,
in old ones glows still spirit of the sun.
But here our new-born infants death possesses
and youth will grave’s dull earth soon press upon.

And what of me? Why ponder I so sadly?
An early sign, be sure, of grim old age.
Oh why the blood-spent rule keep I not gladly,
but sigh instead at people’s mortal wage?

One answer is there only: Lapland’s summer.
In thinking then my mind is soon distressed.
In Lapland birdsong, joy are short – a glimmer –
as flowers’ blooms and gladness wilt and rest.

But winter’s wrath is only long. Dear moment
when resting thoughts delay and don’t take flight,
in search of lands where blazing sun is potent
and take their leave of Lapland’s icy bite.

Oh, great white birds, you guests of summer Lapland,
with noble thoughts we’ll greet you, when you’re here!
Oh, tarry here among us, build your nests and
a while delay your southern journey near!

Oh, from the swan now learn a lesson wholesome!
They leave in autumn, come back in the spring.
It’s our own peaceful shore that us-wards pulls them,
Our sloping fell’s kind shelter will them bring.

Batter the air with whooping wings and leave us!
Wonders perform, enlighten other lands!
But when you see that winter’s gone relieve us –
I beg, beseech, re-clasp our weary hands!”

Eino Leino (1878–1926) Finnish poet and journalist
Sei Shonagon photo