Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.
I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a deep appreciation for the beauty and wonder of nature, particularly the process of cultivation and growth.
In this quote, Nathaniel Hawthorne reflects on the profound joy and love he feels for his garden and the plants he nurtures. His experience of witnessing the growth of his vegetable plants fills him with a unique sense of connection to nature, which he believes cannot be fully understood by those who have not engaged in the act of creation and cultivation themselves. This highlights the intimate relationship between a gardener and their plants, suggesting that the act of growing is not merely a task but a deeply rewarding experience that enriches the soul.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a gardening workshop to inspire participants about the joys of cultivating plants.
More from Nathaniel Hawthorne
All quotes →A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.
There is so much wretchedness in the world, that we may safely take the word of any mortal professing to need our assistance; and, even should we be deceived, still the good to ourselves resulting from a kind act is worth more than the trifle by which we purchase it.
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.
The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
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My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.
For the Infinite has sowed his name in the heavens in burning stars, but on the earth He has sowed his name in tender flowers.
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Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so amazingly know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to live on this beautiful and astonishing planet Earth. In the morning, I wake up with a sense of gratitude.
...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.