No Small Thing ~ Alys Fowler

 "It is no small thing to garden in this changing world....When politicians continue to fail us and big business laughs in the face of our futures, the act of stepping outside their nightmares and choosing to softly, carefully tend our gardens so that all the others, from the soil to songbirds, have space too. Well, that remains as radical as the day we first started to garden as humans." 

~Alys Fowler

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alys_Fowler

Artwork from Marcella Cooper https://www.greenpebble.co.uk/collections/marcella-cooper

Love after Love ~ Derek Walcott

“ The time will come 

when, with elation 

you will greet yourself arriving 

at your own door, in your own mirror 

and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 

for another, who knows you by heart. 

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 

peel your own image from the mirror. 

Sit. Feast on your life” 

~Dereck Walcott

More at  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Walcott

Artwork from Georges Lemmen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemmen

Stop ~ Leo Tolstoy

 “If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” 

~ Leo Tolstoy 

More at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

Artwork from Lou Loeber https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Loeber

Reap What You Sow ~ James D. Wilson

 “ You can't instantly reap what you sow today, it does not work like instant grits, no matter what you sow in life it takes time to grow and be ready for harvest” ~James D. Wilson

Artwork from Edmund Leighton  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Leighton 

So many people called James D. Wilson on the internet, I can’t work out which of them wrote this!

The Journey ~ Paulo Coelho

“Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moments help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments — but all of this is transitory, it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.”

~ Paulo Coelho

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho

Artwork from Helen Timbury

https://helentimburydesign.com.au/

Your Life ~ Henry David Thoreau

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see, but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” 

~ Henry David Thoreau

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau

Artwork from Jane Dignum

https://www.janedignum.com/

In the Woods ~ Bernard of Clairvaux

“Believe me, for I know, you will find something far greater in the woods than in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you cannot learn from the masters.”

~ Bernard of Clairvaux

More at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Clairvaux

Artwork from Gail Kellett

http://www.gailkellett.com.au/artworks/