Lilies Flower Quotes & Sayings

In the beginning - not now, thank God - Patty was always sharing the important books of her life with him, like Black Elk Speaks, The Golden Bough, and Hero with a Thousand Faces. — Richard Price

O Prosperina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's wagon; daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength
a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one. — William Shakespeare

The function of music is to release us from the boredom of existence. — Sebastian Horsley

Had it lived long, is would have been
Lilies without, roses within. — Andrew Marvell

The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower - suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died. — Katharine Hepburn

Two basic rules of life are: 1) Change is inevitable. 2) Everybody resists change. — W. Edwards Deming

Love, which, in concert with Abstinence, established Faith, and which, along with Patience, builds up Chastity, is like the columns that sustain the four corners of a house. For it was that same Love which planted a glorious garden redolent with precious herbs and noble flowers-roses and lilies-which breathed forth a wondrous fragrance, that garden on which the true Solomon was accustomed to feast his eyes. — Gian Carlo Menotti

The autumn comes, a maiden fair In slenderness and grace, With nodding rice-stems in her hair And lilies in her face. In flowers of grasses she is clad; And as she moves along, Birds greet her with their cooing glad Like bracelets' tinkling song. — Kalidasa

When a baby comes you can smell two things: the smell of flesh, which smells like chicken soup, and the smell of lilies, the flower of another garden, the spiritual garden. — Carlos Santana

But can one be a blessing merely by being cheerful? Yes; moral beauty of any kind exerts a silent influence for good. It is like a sweet flower by the wayside, which has a benediction for everyone who passes by. A legend tells how one day in Galilee the useful corn spurned the lilies because they fed no one's hunger. "One cannot earn a living just by being sweet," said the proud cereal. The lilies said nothing in reply, only seemed the sweeter, then the Master came that way; and while his disciples rested at his feet, and the rustling corn invited them to eat, he said, "Children, the life is more than meat. Consider the lilies, how beautiful they grow." It certainly seemed worth while then just to be sweet, for it pleased the Master. — J.R. Miller

As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses. — Alan Watts

The word 'campaign' is a war term. So when you go into a campaign you just prepare to go to war. If you think this is an exercise in civic activity ... then you are going to be surprised.-1985 — Nancy Pelosi

Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Ode to Spring"

I can only find words for.
And sometimes I can't.
Here are these flowers that stand for.
I stand here on the sidewalk.

I can't stand it, but yes of course I understand it.
Everything has to have meaning.
Things have to stand for something.
I can't take the time. Even skin-deep is too deep.

I say to the flower stand man:
Beautiful flowers at your flower stand, man.
I'll take a dozen of the lilies.
I'm standing as it were on my knees

Before a little man up on a raised
Runway altar where his flowers are arrayed
Along the outside of the shop.
I take my flames and pay inside.

I go off and have sexual intercourse.
The woman is the woman I love.
The room displays thirteen lilies.
I stand on the surface. — Frederick Seidel

The distinctions of fine art bore me to death. — Maurice Sendak

Look to the lilies how they grow! 'Twas thus the Saviour said, that we, Even in the simplest flowers that blow, God's ever-watchful care might see. — David Macbeth Moir

My sweet rose, my delicate flower, my lily of lilies, it is perhaps in prison that I am going to test the power of love. I am going to see if I cannot make the bitter warders sweet by the intensity of the love I bear you. I have had moments when I thought it would be wise to separate. Ah! Moments of weakness and madness! Now I see that would have mutilated my life, ruined my art, broken the musical chords which make a perfect soul. Even covered with mud I shall praise you, from the deepest abysses I shall cry to you. In my solitude you will be with me. — Oscar Wilde

It was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words ofthe Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint's picture. — Mary McCarthy

If there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven or
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses
my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)
standing near my
swaying over her
(silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see
nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my
(suddenly in sunlight
he will bow,
and the whole garden will bow) — E. E. Cummings

Is there a relative value of beauty? Is evanescence - fleetingness - a necessary element of the thing that most moves us? A shooting star dazzles more than the sun. A child captivates like an elf, but grows into grossness, an ogre, a harpy. A flower splays itself into color - the lilies of the field! - more treasured than any painting of a flower. But of all these things, women's grace, shooting stars, flowers, and paintings, only a painting endures. — Gregory Maguire

We alternate choosing places to go, but we also have to be willing to go where the road takes us. This means the grand, the small, the bizarre, the poetic, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising. Just like life. But absolutely, unconditionally, resolutely nothing ordinary. — Jennifer Niven

Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot, and turn to attack you (Matthew 7:6). — Stephen Lampe

When Vivian began to recover they brought her a fluted glass vase with an arrangement of lilies and yellow roses from the flower shop on Eighteenth Street owned by an elegant man Arthur had once been involved with, Christos, who was friends with both of them. He, too, loved the theater and everything about it. Later he opened a restaurant. — James Salter

We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep, we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and springs of wildflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak. But we hear. — Susan Griffin

The poem, for me, is simply the first sound realized in the modality of being. — Charles Olson

I have suckled the wolf's lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter. — Audre Lorde

Time seemed to stand still as she noticed three droplets of blood splattered on the Indian's cheek. Crimson red, she thought. Three crimson red droplets. The color of the rubescent calla lilies in her mother's garden. Her mother had explained the wine colored flower meant strength, and passionate courage. How fitting, Zee thought as shock of the reality around her began to set in. — Basil Pearl