Beauty and Wisdom

In the Details


A collection of images of plants from our Gardens accompanied by quotes relevant to our mission of Education, Restoration and Transformation inspired by natural wonders such as these.

Fenestraria aurantiaca

"The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson." - Orison Swett Marden


Platycerium angolense

"Believe one who knows; you will find something more in forests that is beyond what can be found in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux


Ravenala madagascariensis

"Nature is man's teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumines his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence." - Alfred Billings Street


Hibiscus 'Fifth Dimension'

"The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous." - Rabindranath Tagore

"Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet." - Jeremy Bentham


Codiaeum variegatum cultivar

"He is richest who is content with the least." - Socrates

"With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy." - Lope de Vega


Annona squamosa

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." - Mohandas Gandhi


Quesnelia sp.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin


Stapelia gigantea

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." - Albert Einstein

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." - George Washington Carver


Ananas sp.

"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order." - Henry Miller

"Nature does nothing uselessly." - Aristotle


Bilbergia pyramidalis

"Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts." - Sigmund Freud


Nymphaea 'Blue Beauty'

"Nature always tends to act in the simplest way." - Bernoulli


Encephalartos ferox

"A garden is a delight to the eye and a solace for the soul." - Sadi


Strelitzia reginae

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." - William Wordsworth

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." - Aristotle


Cordyline fruticosa

"Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soonest pass away." - William C. Bryant

"Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world." - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Schefflera actinophylla

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." - John Lubbock


Chamaedorea seifrizii

"Man's heart away from nature becomes hard." - Standing Bear

"The good man is the friend of all living things." - Mahatma Gandhi


Syngonium podophyllum

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help." - Albert Schweitzer


Zamia integrifolia

"A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein


Dypsis decaryi

"If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive." - Eleonora Duse

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot