One does not begin to make a garden until he wants a garden. To want a garden is to be interested in plants, in the winds and rains, in birds and insects, in the warm-smelling earth.

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

Tools of many kinds and well chosen, are one of the joys of a garden.

The man who worries morning and night about the dandelions in the lawn will find great relief in loving the dandelions.

I do not yet know why plants come out of the land or float in streams, or creep on rocks or roll from the sea. I am entranced by the mystery of them and absorbed by their variety and kinds. Everywhere, they are visible yet everywhere occult.

No beast has ever overcome the earth; and the natural world has never been conquered by muscular force.

One's happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.