The actual flower is the plant's highest fulfillment, and are not here exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plant geography.
they are here first of all for delight.
- John Ruskin
The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
- Sir Walter Scott
Roses red and violets blew, And all the sweetest flowers that in the forest grew.
- Edmund Spenser
You love the roses - so do I.
I wish the sky would rain down roses, as they rain from off the shaken bush.
Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white and soft to tread on.
They would fall as light as feathers, smelling sweet, and it would be like sleeping and like waking, all at once!
- George Eliot