A weed is but an unloved flower.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that perceptions of beauty are subjective and that things may be undervalued or overlooked.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox's quote highlights the idea that what is often deemed a 'weed' in nature is simply a flower that has not received love or appreciation. This reflects the human tendency to judge based on appearances and societal standards, encouraging a deeper understanding and appreciation of all forms of life, regardless of their status or popular perception.
In practice
In a gardening workshop, to emphasize the beauty of all plants, you could quote this saying.
Sweep up the debris of decaying faith; _x000D_ Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out out beliefs, _x000D_ And throw your soul wide open to the light of reason and of knowledge. _x000D_ Be not afraid _x000D_ To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.
I am the voice of the voiceless; Through me the dumb shall speak. Till the deaf world's ears be made to hear. The wrongs of the wordless weak. And I am my brothers keeper, And I will fight his fights; And speak the words for beast and bird. Till the world shall set things right.
So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song; But the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong.
Do you wish the world were happy? Then remember day by day, just to scatter seeds of kindness as you pass along the way. . . .
It is easy to be pleasant when life flows by like a song, but the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, and it always comes with years, and the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through the tears.
Here I came to the very edge where nothing at all needs saying, everything is absorbed through weather and the sea, and the moon swam back, its rays all silvered, and time and again the darkness would be broken by the crash of a wave, and every day on the balcony of the sea, wings open, fire is born, and everything is blue again like morning.
Switters was actually quite fond of Seattle's weather, and not merely because of it's ambivalence. He liked it's subtle, muted qualities and the landscape that those qualities encouraged if not engendered: vistas that seemed to have been sketched with a sumi brush dipped in quicksilver and green tea. It was fresh, it was clean, it was gently primal, and mystically suggestive.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart.
Take the crocodile, for example, my favorite animal. There are 23 species. Seventeen of those species are rare or endangered. They're on the way out, no matter what anyone does or says, you know.
Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this.
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