Roses red and violets blew, And all the sweetest flowers that in the forest grew.
- Edmund Spenser
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden.
- T.S. Eliot
flowers are not made by singing "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade.
- Rudyard Kipling
Today as in the time of Pliny and Columella, the hyacinth flourishes in Wales, the periwinkle in Illyria, the daisy on the ruins of Numantia,
while around them cities have changed their masters and their names, collided and smashed, disappeared into nothingness,
their peaceful generations have crossed down the ages as fresh and smiling as on the days of battle.
- Edgar Quinet