“To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat.”

Long experience has taught me that people who do not like geraniums have something morally unsound about them.

Sooner or later you will find them out; you will discover that they drink, or steal books, or speak sharply to cats. Never trust a man or a woman who is not passionately devoted to geraniums.

Do you ever find yourself bursting into a sort of lunatic laughter at the sheer prettiness of things?

Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech.

Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light.

A gardener is never shut out from his garden, wherever he may be. Its comfort never fails. Though the city may close about him, and the grime and soot descend upon him, he can still wander in his garden, does he but close his eyes.

As any psychologist will tell you, the worst thing you can possibly do to a woman is to deprive her of a grievance.

To dig one’s own spade into one’s own earth! Has life anything better to offer than this?

A garden without cats, it will be generally agreed, can scarcely deserve to be called a garden at all.

The ordinary blue pickling cabbage. Set against the blazing blue of the other flowers, it had a bloom and elegance which made it a thing of the greatest delight.

Especially since a garden knows how gay and delightful it can be, even in the very frozen heart of the winter, if you only give it a chance.

Marriage is a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.

Last summer I was staying at a house in Hampshire which was famous for the brilliance and the originality of its gardens. There were many of them, but the most beautiful of all was a walled garden in which every flower was blue.

Every moment of this strange and lovely life from dawn to dusk, is a miracle. Somewhere, always a rose is opening its petals to the dawn. Somewhere, always, a flower is fading in the dusk.

We both know, you and I, that if all men were gardeners, the world at last would be at peace.

There were all the obvious things like delphiniums and acronitums and larkspurs, but the most beautiful blue of all came from the groups of cabbages.

You’re going to have more rejection than acceptance.

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

Hardships and handicaps can…stimulate our energy to survive them. You’ll find if you study the lives of people who’ve accomplished things, it’s often been done with the help of great willpower in overcoming this and that.

I took up leprosy work. Not to help anyone, but to overcome that fear in my life. That it worked out good for others was a by-product. But the fact is: I did it to overcome fear.

People aren’t overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.

The great human problem of evil stems from the illusion of separateness. Whenever this illusion is overcome, we behave lovingly to one another.

But to be the best, you must face the best. And to overcome your fear, you must deal with the best.

The best way to overcome fear is to face with equanimity the situation of which one is afraid.