November Light

In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning 

glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of 

months of thought and care and toil. 

And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, 

do we get such superb colour effects as from

August to November." ~Rose G. Kingsley

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. 

So I spend almost all the daylight hours 

in the open air. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hope For Tomorrow

Learn from yesterday, live for today, 

hope for tomorrow. The important thing 

is to not stop questioning. ~Albert Einstein 

Three grand essentials to happiness in this

life are something to do, something to love,

and something to hope for. ~Joseph Addison

Fight Strong

Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health. ~Dalai Lama

We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome. ~Isabel Allende

She is Strong

I think scars are like battle wounds - beautiful, in a way. They show what you've been through and how strong you are for coming out of it. ~Demi Lovato

A strong woman is a woman determined 

to do something others are determined 

not be done. ~Marge Piercy

Cause To Hope

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die. ~Edward Kennedy

A strong mind always hopes, and has 

always cause to hope. ~Thomas Carlyle

Just Believe

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond

the power of reason to believe. ~Voltaire

Faith is to believe what you do not see; 

the reward of this faith is to see what 

you believe. ~Saint Augustine

Battle for Bravery

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly

even when scared half to death. ~Omar N. Bradley

Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery.

Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice.

The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in 

the power of love. ~Morihei Ueshiba

Troubles Away

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.

Some come from ahead and some come from behind.

But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see.

Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! ~Dr. Seuss

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... 

by the ears, by the heels, or any other way 

you can manage it. ~Mark Twain

Healing Power

The power of love to change is legendary, but

in folklore, common sense, and everyday

experience. Love moves flesh, it pushes

matter around... Throughout history, "tender

loving care" has uniformly been recognized

as a valuable element in healing. ~Larry Dossey

Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well... and not today's pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of a woman. ~James H. West 

Strongest Souls

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds

the strength to persevere and endure in spite

of overwhelming obstacles. ~Christopher Reeve

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest

souls; the most massive characters 

are seared with scars. ~Khalil Gibran

Hope in the Darkness

Hope is being able to see that there is light

despite all of the darkness. ~Desmond Tutu

Hope is important because it can make the

present moment less difficult to bear. If we

believe that tomorrow will be better, we 

can bear a hardship today. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Courage Over Fear

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, 

not absence of fear. ~Mark Twain

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by 

every experience in which you really stop to look 

fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next 

thing that comes along.' ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Hidden

When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration. ~Edward Steichen

What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. ~John Berger

Once A Summer Rain

Into each life some rain must fall. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may

suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air

and you...Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain

beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby. ~Langston Hughes

Art of Summer Fields

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. ~Walt Whitman

All art is but imitation of nature. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Beyond the Art

If you're not interested in life, then

photography has no meaning. ~Ruth Bernhard

If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this. ~James McNeill Whistler

Still Hanging On

Patience and perseverance have a magical

effect before which difficulties disappear 

and obstacles vanish. ~John Quincy Adams

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite 

of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: 

It is this, that in all things distinguishes the

strong soul from the weak. ~Thomas Carlyle

'Tis September

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer's best of weather

And autumn's best of cheer.

~Helen Hunt Jackson

Departing summer hath assumed

An aspect tenderly illumed,

The gentlest look of spring;

That calls from yonder leafy shade

Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely caroling.
~William Wordsworth

Passionate Petals

We work in the dark - we do what we can -

we give what we have. Our doubt is our

passion and our passion is our task. The rest

is the madness of art. ~Henry James

It is your passion that empowers you to be able to do that thing you were created to do. ~T.D. Jakes

Moments in Time

Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, 

the greater it is. ~Henri Matisse

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. ~Max Eastman

Art of Consideration

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the 

beauty of flowers - and never succeeding. ~Gian Carlo Menotti

When that shutter clicks, anything else that

can be done afterward is not worth

consideration. ~Edward Steichen

Nature's Music

The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. ~Mary Shelley

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. ~Izaak Walton

Golden Hour

The imagination is the golden pathway 

to everywhere. ~Terence McKenna

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in 

the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. ~Alfred Austin

Look & See

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's

inexorable imperative. ~H.G. Wells

 It's not what you look at that matters, 

it's what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau

Golden Radiance

The ground we walk on, the plants and

creatures, the clouds constantly dissolving

into new formations - each gift of nature

possessing its own radiant energy, bound

together by cosmic harmony. ~Ruth Bernhard

Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows. ~Jean Paul

Butterfly Dreams

Moss covered paths between scarlet peonies,

Pale jade mountains fill your rustic windows.

I envy you, drunk with flowers,

Butterflies swirling in your dreams. ~Ch'ien Ch'i

Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, 

small but approachable, butterflies lead you

to the sunny side of life. And everyone

deserves a little sunshine. ~Jeffrey Glassberg

Nature's Color Palette

Every flower is a soul blossoming 

in nature. ~Gerard De Nerval

Light in Nature creates the movement

of colors. ~Robert Delaunay

Catch the Moment

Happiness is a butterfly, which when

pursued, is always just beyond your grasp,

but which, if you will sit down quietly, may

alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to

slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the

net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is

gone; life itself is gone. That is where the

writer scores over his fellows: he catches the

changes of his mind on the hop. ~Vita Sackville-West

Thistle Awakening

And the day came when the risk to remain

tight in a bud was more painful than 

the risk it took to blossom. ~Anais Nin

You're only here for a short visit. Don't

hurry, don't worry. And be sure to smell the

flowers along the way. ~Walter Hagen

Waiting In The Wings

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. ~Jane Austen

To stay ahead, you must have your next 

idea waiting in the wings. ~Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Garden Journey

Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger 

in your journey, but strive for the mark 

set before you. ~George Whitefield

Always do your best. What you plant now,

you will harvest later. ~Og Mandino

Dodging Raindrops

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. ~John Updike

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon

your head with silver liquid drops. Let the

rain sing you a lullaby. ~Langston Hughes

Simplicity

One eye sees, the other feels. ~Paul Klee

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. ~Walt Whitman

Observations in the Grass

My fascination with letting images repeat

and repeat - or in film's case 'run on' - 

manifests my belief that we spend much of

our lives seeing without observing. ~Andy Warhol

Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i.e. we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for. ~Henry David Thoreau

Nature's Summer Pinstripes

There is nothing I like better at the end of a hot summer's day than taking a short walk around the garden. You can smell the heat coming up from the earth to meet the cooler night air. ~Peter Mayle

One touch of nature makes 

the whole world kin. ~William Shakespeare

Light Revealed

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures. ~James Thurber

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Painted Pink

I dream of painting 

and then I paint my dream. ~Vincent Van Gogh

All gardening is landscape painting. ~William Kent

Passion In The Garden

Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion. ~George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Better pass boldly into that other world, in

the full glory of some passion, than fade and

wither dismally with age. ~James Joyce

Looking Through The Garden

One lifetime is never enough to accomplish

one's horticultural goals. If a garden is a site

for the imagination, how can we be very far

from the beginning? ~Francis Cabot Lowell

I am writing in the garden. To write as one

should of a garden one must write not

outside it or merely somewhere near it, but

in the garden. ~Frances Hodgson Burnett