Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 51.
“The bee and the serpent often sip from the selfsame flower.”
L'ape e la serpe spesso
Suggon l'istesso umore;
Part I.
Morte d' Abele (1732)
Ode.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
<span class="plainlinks"> Entanglements http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zl7d1</span>
From Poetry
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.
Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
Context: A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succor, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks. If he works by lamplight on a summer evening, he prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling air, rather than to see insect after insect fall on his table with singed and sinking wings.
If he goes out in to the street after a rainstorm and sees a worm which has strayed there, he reflects that it will certainly dry up in the sunshine, if it does not quickly regain the damp soil into which it can creep, and so he helps it back from the deadly paving stones into the lush grass. Should he pass by an insect which has fallen into a pool, he spares the time to reach it a leaf or stalk on which it may clamber and save itself.
On the 60's flower children
Edie : Girl On Fire (2006)
Context: It's sort of like a mockery in a way of reality because they think everything is smiles and sweetness and flowers when there is something bitter to taste. And to pretend there isn't is foolish. I mean the ones that wonder around and know, at the same time, and yet wear flowers, and they deserve to wear flowers. And they've earned their smile... you can tell by people's eyes.
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.
Part 4: Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding
The Mystique of Enlightenment (1982)
Context: I have one thing against medical technology. You see, the very desire to understand the human being is to control him — that is why I am not quite in sympathy. The day you control the endocrine glands, you will change the personality of man; you won't need any brainwashing. Brainwashing is a very elaborate process. If nature had been allowed to go on in its own way, everybody would have become a unique flower. Why should there be only roses in this world? What for? A grass flower or a dandelion flower has as much beauty, as much importance in the scheme of things. Why should there be only jasmine flowers, roses, or some other flower? So, the possibility is there of a change taking place which is sudden, not progressive. It has to happen in a very sudden and explosive way to break the whole thing.
Sagredo
Variant translation: I cannot without great wonder, nay more, disbelief, hear it being attributed to natural bodies as a great honor and perfection that they are impassable, immutable, inalterable, etc.: as conversely, I hear it esteemed a great imperfection to be alterable, generable, and mutable. It is my opinion that the earth is very noble and admirable by reason of the many and different alterations, mutations, and generations which incessantly occur in it. And if, without being subject to any alteration, it had been one great heap of sand, or a mass of jade, or if, since the time of the deluge, the waters freezing which covered it, it had continued an immense globe of crystal, wherein nothing had ever grown, altered, or changed, I should have esteemed it a wretched lump of no benefit to the Universe, a mass of idleness, and in a word superfluous, exactly as if it had never been in Nature. The difference for me would be the same as between a living and a dead creature. I say the same concerning the Moon, Jupiter, and all the other globes of the Universe.
The more I delve into the consideration of the vanity of popular discourses, the more empty and simple I find them. What greater folly can be imagined than to call gems, silver, and gold noble, and earth and dirt base? For do not these persons consider that if there were as great a scarcity of earth as there is of jewels and precious metals, there would be no king who would not gladly give a heap of diamonds and rubies and many ingots of gold to purchase only so much earth as would suffice to plant a jessamine in a little pot or to set a tangerine in it, that he might see it sprout, grow up, and bring forth such goodly leaves, fragrant flowers, and delicate fruit? It is scarcity and plenty that makes things esteemed and despised by the vulgar, who will say that there is a most beautiful diamond, for it resembles a clear water, and yet would not part from it for ten tons of water. 'These men who so extol incorruptibility, inalterability, and so on, speak thus, I believe, out of the great desire they have to live long and for fear of death, not considering that, if men had been immortal, they would not have come into the world. These people deserve to meet with a Medusa's head that would transform them into statues of diamond and jade, that so they might become more perfect than they are.
Part of this passage, in Italian, I detrattori della corruptibilitá meriterebber d'esser cangiati in statue., has also ben translated into English as "Detractors of corruptibility deserve being turned into statues."
Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo. (PDF) http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/g/galilei/le_opere_di_galileo_galilei_edizione_nazionale_sotto_gli_etc/pdf/le_ope_p.pdf, Le Opere di Galileo Galilei vol. VII, pg. 58.
Compare Maimonides "If man were never subject to change there could be no generation; there would be one single being..." Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190)
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
Context: I cannot without great astonishment — I might say without great insult to my intelligence — hear it attributed as a prime perfection and nobility of the natural and integral bodies of the universe that they are invariant, immutable, inalterable, etc., while on the other hand it is called a great imperfection to be alterable, generable, mutable, etc. For my part I consider the earth very noble and admirable precisely because of the diverse alterations, changes, generations, etc. that occur in it incessantly. If, not being subject to any changes, it were a vast desert of sand or a mountain of jasper, or if at the time of the flood the waters which covered it had frozen, and it had remained an enormous globe of ice where nothing was ever born or ever altered or changed, I should deem it a useless lump in the universe, devoid of activity and, in a word, superfluous and essentially non-existent. This is exactly the difference between a living animal and a dead one; and I say the same of the moon, of Jupiter, and of all other world globes.
The deeper I go in considering the vanities of popular reasoning, the lighter and more foolish I find them. What greater stupidity can be imagined than that of calling jewels, silver, and gold "precious," and earth and soil "base"? People who do this ought to remember that if there were as great a scarcity of soil as of jewels or precious metals, there would not be a prince who would not spend a bushel of diamonds and rubies and a cartload of gold just to have enough earth to plant a jasmine in a little pot, or to sow an orange seed and watch it sprout, grow, and produce its handsome leaves, its fragrant flowers, and fine fruit. It is scarcity and plenty that make the vulgar take things to be precious or worthless; they call a diamond very beautiful because it is like pure water, and then would not exchange one for ten barrels of water. Those who so greatly exalt incorruptibility, inalterability, etc. are reduced to talking this way, I believe, by their great desire to go on living, and by the terror they have of death. They do not reflect that if men were immortal, they themselves would never have come into the world. Such men really deserve to encounter a Medusa's head which would transmute them into statues of jasper or of diamond, and thus make them more perfect than they are.
"The Island", in Bulletin of the Garden Club of America (1929), p. 1, also in Collected Poems (1934), p. 54
“Shed no tear! O shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.”
"Faery Songs", I (1818)
Context: Shed no tear! O shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! O weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core.
And both epithets will be false. After all this, is life worth the trouble? And yet we live - out of curiosity! We expect something new... How absurd, and yet how vexatious!
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)
“Beauty's a frail flower.”
Forma bonum fragile est.
Book II, line 113 (tr. James Michie)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
Book X : The Pope.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Context: What wonder if the novel claim had clashed
With old requirement, seemed to supersede
Too much the customary law? But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o' the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend the trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living: — didst resist —
Anticipate the office that is mine —
And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,
The endeavour of the wicked, and defend
Him who, — again in my default, — was there
For visible providence: one less true than thou
To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right,
Approved less far in all docility
To all instruction, — how had such an one
Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?"
"The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love" in Death in Midsummer, and Other Stories (1966), p. 61.
Context: By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive the Truth. And first we must know that each of the petals has eighty-four thousand veins and that each vein gives eighty-four thousand lights.
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p
“That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.”
"Gubbinal"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: p>That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.The world is ugly,
And the people are sad..</p
The Way to Love (1995)
Context: If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom.
Book I, Ch. 1 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2H_4_0002
Christian Science (1907)
Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)
Poetic Justice.
Source: Song lyrics, good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)
“Raise your words, not voice.
It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
https://twitter.com/wise_chimp/status/1488946174321205253?s=21
Source: The Great Gatsby
"Mind Games"
Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)
Original: We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil.
Doing the mind guerrilla,
Some call it magic — the search for the grail.
Love is the answer and you know that for sure.
Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow.
見るところ花にあらずと云ふことなし、
思ふところ月にあらずと云ふことなし。
Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi,
omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi
Classical Japanese Database, Translation #172 http://carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/translation/view/172 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth)
Statements
Variant: There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
“She wanted to exist only as a conscious flower, prolonging and preserving herself”
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
This appears as an anonymous proverb in Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine Vol. XIII, (January - June 1883) edited by T. De Witt Talmage, and apparently only in recent years has it become attributed to Addison.
Disputed
Source: Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood
“Wherever her feet pass, white flowers part the grass.”
Source: Nightfall
Source: Sandman Slim
St. 14
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)
Source: An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard
Source: The Name of the Wind
“since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid”
Source: Complete Poems, 1904-1962
Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
“In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.”
Source: The Book Of Tea
“Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.”
“Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”
Ivi; p. 147
Source: Merry Gentry series, A Stroke of Midnight (2005)
“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it”
Variant: The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
Source: The Kite Runner
“A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”
Source: God-Shaped Hole
Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Source: The Complete Fairy Tales
Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
“A weed is just a flower growing in the wrong place”
Source: Perfect
Variant: The rain to the wind said,
You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost
“Eccentricty had flowered into madness.”
Source: The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
“I am dead to them, even though I once flowered.”
Source: The Journals Of Sylvia Plath
Source: City of Lost Souls
Source: Magic Strikes
“We should enjoy this summer, flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one we’ll see.”
Variant: Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be...
Source: Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood
“All Heaven and Earth
Flowered white obliterate…
Snow… unceasing snow”
Source: Japanese Haiku
“Oh, the universe had outdone herself. The universe would be send flowers.”
Variant: The universe could be a wondrous thing. The universe had out did herself. The universe would be getting flowers.
Source: The Runaway Queen
