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

"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."

"No beast has ever conquered the earth; and the natural world has never been conquered by muscular force."

"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."

"Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind."

"A heart touched by genuine kindness never loses its warmth. Such is the immutable nature of understanding."

"The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river."

"The glacier was God's great plough set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth."