Liberty Hyde Bailey Quotes & Sayings

“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”

“When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted with himself.”

“The true purpose of education is to teach a man to carry himself triumphant to the sunset.”

“Every decade needs its own manual of handicraft.”

“Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.”

“A person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.”

“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.”

“There are two essential epochs in any enterprise - to begin, and to get done.”

“Give the children an opportunity to make garden. Let them grow what they will. It matters less that they grow good plants than that they try for themselves.”

“We accept it because we have seen the vision. We know that we cannot reap the harvest, but we hope that we may so well prepare the land and so diligently sow the seed that our successors may gather the ripened grain.”