I took my pill at eleven. An hour and half later I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase contained only three flowers — a full blown Belle of Portugal rose1, shell pink with a hint at every petal’s base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-coloured carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris.
—Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, Vintage 2004 (1954)
With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures, and some books, I live without envy.
—Félix Lope de Vega
(…) the scientist told the assembled that “the feeling of co-creatureliness with all things alive should enter our Consciousness more fully and counterbalance the materialistic and nonsensical technological developments in order to enable us to return to the roses, to the flowers, to nature, where we belong.”
—Michael Pollan (How to Change Your Mind)
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!
—Audrey Hepburn
Because gardening requires so much patience and attention, gardeners have a unique sense of time and perspective.
—Austin Kleon (Keep Going)
