Joie du Soleil

I will take care not to go toward the dark.
I will go toward the day.
– Inuit saying

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
-Victor Hugo

Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself.
-Erasmus

The day, water, sun, moon, night–I do not have to purchase these things with money.
-Plautus (Roman playwright, c. 254-184 B.C.)

The meaning of life is to find your gift.
The purpose of life is to give it away.
-Pablo Picasso

Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job.
-George Bernard Shaw

Never give up listening to the sounds of birds.
-John James Audubon

It doesn’t matter where we go away on holiday — as soon as we get home, we’re relieved. There’s nowhere like it for us.
-Carlo Briscoe (Tile-maker in Pembrokeshire, UK)

“My dear, all life is a series of problems which we must try and solve. First one, and then the next, and the next, until at last we die.”
-a line from the Dowager, a character played by
Maggie Smith in “Downton Abbey”, by
Julian Fellowes.

I am spending delightful afternoons in my garden, watching everything living around me. As I grow older, I feel everything departing, and I love everything with more passion.
-Emile Zola

…everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow cycles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
-May Sarton (1912-1985)

…the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our legitimate hope.
-Wendell Berry