Liberty Hyde Bailey

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

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.

When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted with himself.

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

The true purpose of education is to teach a man to carry himself triumphant to the sunset.

We accept it because we have seen the vision. We know that we cannot reap the harvest, but we hope that we may so well prepare the land and so diligently sow the seed that our successors may gather the ripened grain.

There are two essential epochs in any enterprise - to begin, and to get done.

My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams. It appears that everything I saw and did has a new, and perhaps, more significant meaning, every time I see it. The earth is good. It is a privilege to live thereon.

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

One's happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.

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.