Quotes by Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954)

Liberty Hyde Bailey Quotes

- 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.

- A person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.

- Anyone who acquires more than the usual amount of knowledge concerning a subject is bound to leave it as his contribution to the knowledge of the world.

- Every decade needs its own manual of handicraft.

- Extension work is not exhortation. Nor is it exploitation of the people, or advertising of an institution, or publicity work for securing students. It is a plain, earnest, and continuous effort to meet the needs of the people on their own farms and in the localities.

- Give the children an opportunity to make garden. Let them grow what they will. It matters less that they grow good plants than that they try for themselves.

- I do not yet know why plants come out of the land or float in streams, or creep on rocks or roll from the sea. I am entranced by the mystery of them, and absorbed by their variety and kinds. Everywhere they are visible yet everywhere occult.

- My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams. It appears that everything I saw and did has a new, and perhaps, more significant meaning, every time I see it. The earth is good. It is a privilege to live thereon.

- No beast has ever conquered the earth; and the natural world has never been conquered by muscular force.

- One's happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.

- Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

- The true purpose of education is to teach a man to carry himself triumphant to the sunset.

- There are two essential epochs in any enterprise - to begin, and to get done.

- There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

- We accept it because we have seen the vision. We know that we cannot reap the harvest, but we hope that we may so well prepare the land and so diligently sow the seed that our successors may gather the ripened grain.

- When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted with himself.

- Fact is not to be worshipped. The life which is devoid of imagination is dead; it is tied to the earth. There need be no divorce of fact and fancy; they are only the poles of experience. What is called the scientific method is only imagination set within bounds. Facts are bridged by imagination. They are tied together by the thread of speculation. The very essence of science is to reason from the known to the unknown.

- One’s happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.

- Every decade needs its own manual of handicraft.

- Anyone who acquires more than the usual amount of knowledge concerning a subject is bound to leave it as his contribution to the knowledge of the world.

- Give the children an opportunity to make garden. Let them grow what they will. It matters less that they grow good plants than that they try for themselves.

- A person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.

- We are now devoting ourselves to science. I am afraid some of us feel that science will give us final solutions - better bases for philosophy, an ideal groundwork for satisfactions, for enjoyment. But it is doubtful whether the mind of man can ever understand the universe. For every puzzle that we uncover and solve, two more appear that were hidden.

- There are two essential epochs in any enterprise - to begin, and to get done.

- It is a marvelous planet on which we ride. It is a great privilege to live thereon, to partake in the journey, and to experience its goodness. We may cooperate rather than rebel. We should try to find the meanings rather than to be satisfied only with the spectacles. My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams.

- We must tell it to the world that the higher education is necessary to the best agriculture. We must tell our friends of our enthusiasm for the generous life of the country. We must say that we believe in our ability to make good use of every lesson which the University has given us. We must say to every man that our first love is steadfast, our hopes are high, and our enthusiasm is great. Our hearts are so full that we must celebrate.

- There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

- The sense of conquest is in it. Not often is a collector able to obtain complete material in one assault. The plant may be at the moment sterile, or only in fruit or flower... but this lack has the advantage of stimulating the collector to go back in another season or year to complete the work.

- This College of Agriculture was not established to serve or to magnify Cornell University. It belongs to the people of the State. The farmers of the State have secured it. Their influence has placed it here. They will keep it close to the ground. If there is any man standing on the land, unattached, uncontrolled, who feels that he has a disadvantages and a problem, this College of Agriculture stands for that man.

- 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.

- No beast has ever conquered the earth; and the natural world has never been conquered by muscular force.

- 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.

- Is there any progress in horticulture? If not, it is dead, uninspiring. We cannot live in the past, good as it is; we must draw our inspiration from the future.

- 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.

- When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted with himself.

- One never makes the quest unless the mind is open at the start. Herein does this mind differ from the advocate who must prove a case, from that of a preacher who must support a dogma, from that of the politician who must defend a party, from that of an organization that must enforce a policy. There are no parties in science.

- Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

- We accept it because we have seen the vision. We know that we cannot reap the harvest, but we hope that we may so well prepare the land and so diligently sow the seed that our successors may gather the ripened grain.

- My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams. It appears that everything I saw and did has a new, and perhaps, more significant meaning, every time I see it. The earth is good. It is a privilege to live thereon.

- The name of the subject is not fundamentally important. All subjects may be made the means of developing a man. What we call "culture" is not the result of a line of study, so much as the result of association with educated and sensitive persons. A well educated mind has a broad outlook. It develops beyond the specialist to the philosopher... We are learning that no subjects are unclean.

- I do not yet know why plants come out of the land or float in streams, or creep on rocks or roll from the sea. I am entranced by the mystery of them, and absorbed by their variety and kinds. Everywhere they are visible yet everywhere occult.

- I have no patience with the doctrine of pure science, that science is science only when it is uncontaminated by application in the arts of life; and I also have no patience with the spirit that considers a piece of work to be legitimate only as it has direct bearing on the arts and affairs of men.
Even though the college man raises no more wheat than his neighbor, he will have more satisfaction raising it. He will know why he turns the clod; he will challenge the worm that burrows in the furrow; his eyes will follow the field mouse that scuds under the grass; he will see the wild fowl winging its way across the heaven. All these things will add to the meaning of life and they are his.

- Humble is the grass in the field, yet it has noble relations. All the bread grains are grass - wheat and rye, barley, sorghum and rice; maize, the great staple of America; millet, oats and sugar cane. Other things have their season but the grass is of all seasons... the common background on which the affairs of nature and man are conditioned and displayed.

- Extension work is not exhortation. Nor is it exploitation of the people, or advertising of an institution, or publicity work for securing students. It is a plain, earnest, and continuous effort to meet the needs of the people on their own farms and in the localities.

- If there is no land, there are porches or windows, balconies or small green spaces attached to houses.

- Even though the college man raises no more wheat than his neighbor, he will have more satisfaction raising it. He will know why he turns the clod; he will challenge the worm that burrows in the furrow; his eyes will follow the field mouse that scuds under the grass; he will see the wild fowl winging its way across the heaven. All these things will add to the meaning of life and they are his

- 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.

- The true purpose of education is to teach a man to carry himself triumphant to the sunset.

- One's happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.

- A person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.

- We must tell it to the world that the higher education is necessary to the best agriculture. We must tell our friends of our enthusiasm for the generous life of the country. We must say that we believe in our ability to make good use of every lesson which the University has given us. We must say to every man that our first love is steadfast, our hopes are high, and our enthusiasm is great. Our hearts are so full that we must celebrate.

- My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams. It appears that everything I saw and did has a new, and perhaps, more significant meaning, every time I see it. The earth is good. It is a privilege to live thereon.

- It is a marvelous planet on which we ride. It is a great privilege to live thereon, to partake in the journey, and to experience its goodness. We may cooperate rather than rebel. We should try to find the meanings rather than to be satisfied only with the spectacles. My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams.

- If today you care only for pinks and roses and other prim garden flows, next year you will also admire the wild convolvulus on the old fence and the winter stalks of the sunflower. There are times and seasons for all plants. One's sympathies are wide, as one's life is full and resourceful.

- Fact is not to be worshipped. The life which is devoid of imagination is dead; it is tied to the earth. There need be no divorce of fact and fancy; they are only the poles of experience. What is called the scientific method is only imagination set within bounds. Facts are bridged by imagination. They are tied together by the thread of speculation. The very essence of science is to reason from the known to the unknown.

- Even though the college man raises no more wheat than his neighbor, he will have more satisfaction raising it. He will know why he turns the clod; he will challenge the worm that burrows in the furrow; his eyes will follow the field mouse that scuds under the grass; he will see the wild fowl winging its way across the heaven. All these things will add to the meaning of life and they are his.

- Nature cannot be antagonistic to man, seeing that man is a product of nature.

- I like the man who has an incomplete course…. If the man has acquired a power for work, a capacity for initiative and investigation, an enthusiasm for the daily life his incompleteness is his strength. How much there is before him! How eager his eyes! How enthusiastic his temper! He is a man with a point of view, not a man with mere facts. This man will see first big and significant things; he will grasp relationships; he will correlate; later he will consider the details.

- Is there any progress in horticulture? If not, it is dead, uninspiring. We cannot live in the past, good as it is; we must draw our inspiration from the future.

- We must tell it to the world that the higher education is necessary to the best agriculture. We must tell our friends of our enthusiasm for the generous life of the country. We must say that we believe in our ability to make good use of every lesson which the University has given us. We must say to every man that our first love is steadfast, our hopes are high, and our enthusiasm is great. Our hearts are so full that we must celebrate.

- Humble is the grass in the field, yet it has noble relations. All the bread grains are grass—wheat and rye, barley, sorghum, and rice; maize, the great staple of America; millet, oats, and sugar cane. Other things have their season but the grass is of all seasons … the common background on which the affairs of nature and man are conditioned and displayed.

- Fact is not to be worshiped. The life which is devoid of imagination is dead; it is tied to the earth. There need be no divorce of fact and fancy; they are only the poles of experience. What is called the scientific method is only imagination set within bounds…. Facts are bridged by imagination. They are tied together by the thread of speculation. The very essence of science is to reason from the known to the unknown.