My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.
Interpretation
The quote expresses how nature can evoke deep feelings and provide a refuge from life's concerns.
In this quote, Alexander Smith compares his experience in his garden to the soothing effects of music. The garden, filled with silence and fragrance, creates an emotional sanctuary where the stresses of life are kept at bay, allowing for peaceful reflection and appreciation of beauty.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the therapeutic benefits of nature.
Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices.
Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new.
Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)
A man does not plant a tree for himself; he plants it for posterity.
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters
Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility. The shallow-minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important.
A white flower grows in the quietness. Let your tongue become that flower.
When I kayak in Cardigan Bay, in Wales, what I hope to find above all else is dolphins. Sometimes I do, and these days are the waymarks of my life.
The oak tree:_x000D_ _x000D_ not interested_x000D_ _x000D_ in cherry blossoms.
We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the shadow of Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.
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