As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.
When a man’s pride is subdued it’s like the sides of Mount Aetna. It was terrible during the eruption, but when that is over and the lava is turned into soil, there are vineyards and olive trees which grow up to the top.
Some people are proud of their humility.
The tree is but a huge boquet.
Nothing can be more airy and beautiful than the transparent seed-globe-a fairy dome of splendid architecture.
The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower?
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others are plain, honest and upright, like the broad faced sunflower and the hollyhock.
Flowers may beckon todwards us, but they speak todward heaven and God.
He who hunts for flowers will finds flowers; and he who loves weeds will find weeds.
His nature is such that our often coming does not tire him. The whole burden of the whole life of every man may be rolled on to God and not weary him, though it has wearied man.
Coming to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs.
He who olny does not appreciate floral beauty is to be pitied like any other man who is born inperfect. It is a misfortune not unlike blindness.
A very common flower adds generosity to beauty. It gives joy to the poor, to the rude, and to the multitudes who could have no flowers were nature to charge a price for her blossoms.
It is sometimes of God’s mercy that men in the eager pursuit of worldly aggrandizement are baffled; for they are very like a train going down an inclined plane – putting on the brake is not pleasant, but it keeps the car on the track and from ruin.
Victories that come cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.
A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm – it can creep, but it cannot fly.
Many men build as cathedrals are built-the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.
What if you have seen it before, ten thousand times over? An apple tree in full blossom is like a message, sent fresh from heaven to earth, of purity and beauty.
Nothing marks the change from the city to the country so much as the absence of grinding noises. The country is never silent. But its sounds are separate, distinct, and as it were, articulate.
Nothing can compare in beauty, and wonder, and admirableness, and divinity itself, to the silent work in obscure dwellings of faithful women bringing their children to honor and virtue and piety.