“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” — Carl Sagan

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The sound of monsoons and monocultures:

“What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of a rabbit, rabbits. But a man is broken and dissipated by the giddiness of his will; he does not throw himself into his judgments; his genius leads him one way but ’tis likely his trade or politics in quite another.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Natural History of Intellect (1893)

“A garden is half-made when it is well planned. The best gardener is the one who does the most gardening by the winter fire.” — Liberty Hyde Bailey

“If a person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.” — Liberty Hyde Bailey

“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.” — Liberty Hyde Bailey

“One does not begin to make a garden until he wants a garden. To want a garden is to be interested in plants, in the winds and rains, in birds and insects, in the warm-smelling earth.” — Liberty Hyde Bailey

“Action has its advocates. Contemplation also has its adherents. The former tends to be exterior, peripheral or centrifugal; while the latter, by comparison, more inner, central and vital.   …we should live as decently, kindly, justly, orderly and efficiently as possible. Human beings, under any set of circumstances, can behave well or badly. Whatever the circumstances, it is better to love, create and construct than to hate, undermine and destroy, or , what may be even worse at times, ignore and laissez passer.” — Helen and Scott Nearing, Living the Good Life (1954)

“When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” — Buckminster Fuller

“What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?” — Arthur Miller

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