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Simply Flowers.  Only photos I’ve taken of flowers with a few words by famous people about flowers.

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I must have flowers – Claude Monet

I must have flowers, always and always

-Claude Monet

To see the world – William Blake

TO SEE A WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND

AND A HEAVEN IN A FLOWER,

HOLD INFINITY IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND

AND ETERNITY IN AN HOUR.

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

A garden and a dream – Victor Hugo

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in-

-what more could he ask?

A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.

-Victor Hugo

Birthdays – don’t let them bring you down

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“It takes a long time to become young.”  Pablo Picasso

Let them eat cake. Marie Antoinette

“You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‘See if you can blow this out.” Jerry Seinfeld

Birthdays – Ovid, Metamorphoses

“I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust, I forgot to ask that they be years of youth. ”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

Nobody sees a flower – Georgia O’Keefe

Nobody sees a flower –

-really-

– it is so small it takes time –

-we haven’t time-

and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.

Georgia O’Keeffe

What we see – John Lubbock

“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. … In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.”
― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in

Yes I can!

Yes I can! Photo by me 2016, Spain

It takes strength to be firm,
It takes courage to be gentle.

It takes strength to conquer,
It takes courage to surrender.

It takes strength to be certain,
It takes courage to have doubt.

It takes strength to fit in,
It takes courage to stand out.

It takes strength to feel a friend’s pain,
It takes courage to feel your own pain.

It takes strength to endure abuse,
It takes courage to stop it.

It takes strength to stand alone,
It takes courage to lean on another.

It takes strength to love,
It takes courage to be loved.

It takes strength to survive,
It takes courage to live.

Author unknown, I found the poem here

Dutch Flower paintings – not real

Ok, That title is a bit misleading.  And contrary to my blog’s expressed purpose – that all pics are taken by me – that’s not the case in this post either.  Sorry to disappoint.  But it was time to expand my repertoire.

Actually, this post is about an article I read recently.  The title of the article is “Why these Dutch flower paintings bear no resemblance to reality – review” and you can find the article here

It’s rather interesting to read what the reviewer says about Dutch flower paintings:

This, of course, is the point about Dutch flower paintings: despite their breathtaking illusionism, detailing with bejewelled precision individual blooms, as well as insects including silkworms, butterflies and sundry other critters, they do not reflect reality.

A typical Dutch flower painting presents a panoply of rare petals that could never actually bloom together at the same time. In other words, it is a construct, a botanical impossibility, an exercise in sublime artifice pieced together from earlier studies.

So follow the link to the article and you can read the remainder of Alastair Sooke’s review. And thanks for taking a look at my post!

LOVE – not just for today

 

“Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you’ve got to let it grow.” John Lennon

“Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”  Hans Christian Andersen

happy valentines day to everyone

We miss you Max.

We will always love you Max.

STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND PET ME NOW!!

 

Could you please remove that net?  It’s blocking my sun!

 

Ohh….mmmm…that sun feels good!

 

I can’t get much more comfortable than this!

Some of my best work getting done.

We will always love you Max.

In memory of Max (7/1997 – 1/18/2016)

Max, my dear friend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem by Emily Dickinson

I tend my flowers for thee

“I tend my flowers for thee —

Bright Absentee!
My Fuchsia’s Coral Seams
Rip — while the Sower — dreams —

Geraniums — tint — and spot —
Low Daisies — dot —
My Cactus — splits her Beard
To show her throat —

Carnations — tip their spice —
And Bees — pick up —
A Hyacinth — I hid —
Puts out a Ruffled Head —
And odors fall
From flasks — so small —
You marvel how they held —

Globe Roses — break their satin glake —
Upon my Garden floor —
Yet — thou — not there —
I had as lief they bore
No Crimson — more —

Thy flower — be gay —
Her Lord — away!
It ill becometh me —
I’ll dwell in Calyx — Gray —
How modestly — alway —
Thy Daisy —
Draped for thee”

Smell the Flowers along the way – Walter Hagen

photo by me

“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

photo by me

 

A Garden of beautiful flowers – Walt Whitman

photo by me

“Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.”  Walt Whitman

 

To live in this world…

photo by Kmays

“To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”  Mary Oliver

I Know Someone – poem by Mary Oliver

 

Orchid in my living room. by me

A Poem by Mary Oliver

I KNOW SOMEONE 

“I know someone who kisses the way

a flower opens, but more rapidly.

Flowers are sweet. They have

short, beatific lives. They offer

much pleasure. There is

nothing in the world that can be said

against them.

Sad, isn’t it, that all they can kiss

is the air.

Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones.”

Mary Oliver quotes:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

Aliens may be weeds

Weeds – Myakka River State Park – Florida

“A weed is but an unloved flower.”
― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“One person’s weed is another person’s wildflower.”
― Susan Wittig Albert, An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries

Kurt Vonnegut – “…Flowers didn’t ask to be flowers…”

 

“Flowers didn’t ask to be flowers and I didn’t ask to be me.”

water lily from my garden in Shanghai

“I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn’t want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don’t know why, exactly. I suppose that flowers, when they’re through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served. Flowers didn’t ask to be flowers and I didn’t ask to be me.  At the end of Slaughterhouse-Five…I had a shutting-off feeling…that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was OK .” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut (underlining is mine)

When you are down, look to flowers for help

“The more often we see the things around us – even the beautiful and wonderful things – the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds – even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.”
Joseph B. Wirthlin

 

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.”
― Luther Burbank

 

“Keep love in your heart…” Just more flowers, please

 

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Oscar Wilde