Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.
Interpretation
Gardening allows for contemplation and philosophical thought without external judgment.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury illustrates how gardening can serve as a metaphorical refuge for deep philosophical reflections. By likening gardeners to great thinkers like Plato and Socrates, he suggests that the act of tending to plants allows individuals to explore profound ideas in a serene environment away from societal scrutiny. The imagery of a man with manure evokes the labor and responsibility associated with both gardening and philosophical thought, implying that both pursuits require dedication and care.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a community gardening event to inspire deeper thinking about the connection between nature and philosophy.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
The first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don't have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Pride is a tricky, glorious, double-edged feeling.
I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.
Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.
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