How vainly men themselves amaze, / To win the palm, the oak, or bays; / And their incessant labours see / Crowned from some single herb or tree.
Andrew MarvellRead
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that true enjoyment and appreciation of life are found in the simplicity and beauty of nature.
In this quote, Andrew Marvell reflects on the idea that the most joyful and fulfilling moments in life can often be measured by our connection to nature, represented by herbs and flowers. It implies that the natural world offers us genuine happiness and serenity, contrasting with the complexities of modern life, and encourages us to cherish these simple pleasures.
Themes
NatureHappinessBeautySimplicityFlowers
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of environmental conservation.
More from Andrew Marvell
All quotes βMeanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green glade ... Such was that happy garden-state.
Andrew MarvellRead
Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, while we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew MarvellRead
Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade.
Andrew MarvellRead
Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.
Andrew MarvellRead
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,_x000D_ Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,_x000D_ So Man, declining always, disappears_x000D_ In the weak circles of increasing years;_x000D_ And his short tumults of themselves compose,_x000D_ While flowing Time above his head does close.
Andrew MarvellRead
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'Tis spring; come out to ramble_x000D_ _x000D_ The hilly brakes around,_x000D_ _x000D_ For under thorn and bramble_x000D_ _x000D_ About the hollow ground_x000D_ _x000D_ The primroses are found._x000D_ _x000D_ And there's the windflower chilly_x000D_ _x000D_ With all the winds at play,_x000D_ _x000D_ And there's the Lenten lily_x000D_ _x000D_ That has not long to stay_x000D_ _x000D_ And dies on Easter day.
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Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath? Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers, with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever?
Mary OliverRead
The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead