Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.
Interpretation
Gardening allows for contemplation and philosophical thought without external judgment.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury illustrates how gardening can serve as a metaphorical refuge for deep philosophical reflections. By likening gardeners to great thinkers like Plato and Socrates, he suggests that the act of tending to plants allows individuals to explore profound ideas in a serene environment away from societal scrutiny. The imagery of a man with manure evokes the labor and responsibility associated with both gardening and philosophical thought, implying that both pursuits require dedication and care.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a community gardening event to inspire deeper thinking about the connection between nature and philosophy.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
The first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
The tribal community lived in the totality of circular time; the farmers of God's universe understood before and after; workers of the clockwork universe lived by the tick; and we creatures of the digital era must relate to the pulse.
We have bodies. We have personalities. We have histories, stories and experiences. But we are not those things - we are Spirit.
I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.
One of the dilemmas of architecture in general is that there is a Catch-22 - you can't actually get to be commissioned to do certain types of building until you've already built that type of building. So it seems to be incredibly hard to get going.
If God is Trinity and Jesus is the face of God, then it is a benevolent universe. God is not someone to be afraid of, but is the Ground of Being and on our side.
It is unthinkable in the twentieth century to fail to distinguish between what constitutes an abominable atrocity that must be prosecuted and what constitutes that "past" which "ought not to be stirred up.
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