Beverley Nichols Quotes

• Marriage is a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.

  Beverley Nichols

  Funny, Anniversary, Romantic

  48 Copy quote

• We both know, you and I, that if all men were gardeners, the world at last would be at peace.

  Beverley Nichols

  Men, Would Be, World

  19 Copy quote

• Every moment of this strange and lovely life from dawn to dusk, is a miracle. Somewhere, always a rose is opening its petals to the dawn. Somewhere, always, a flower is fading in the dusk.

  Beverley Nichols

  Flower, Rose, Miracle

  17 Copy quote

• A garden is a place for shaping a little world of your own according to your heart's desire.

  Beverley Nichols

  Heart, Garden, Desire

  Beverley Nichols (2009). “Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols”, p.123, Timber Press

  14 Copy quote

• Let us be honest: most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked around the house with a saintly expression.

  Beverley Nichols

  Cat, Expression, House

  Beverley Nichols (1960). “Cats' A. B. C.”

  14 Copy quote

• Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech. Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light. The scent of grass is more luxurious than the most expensive perfume. The slow, simple observations of the peasant are more wise than the most sparkling epigrams of the latest wit.

  Beverley Nichols

  Life, Wise, Country

  19 Copy quote

• Long experience has taught me that people who do not like geraniums have something morally unsound about them. Sooner or later you will find them out; you will discover that they drink, or steal books, or speak sharply to cats. Never trust a man or a woman who is not passionately devoted to geraniums.

  Beverley Nichols

  Book, Cat, Men

  17 Copy quote

• Most people, early in November, take last looks at their gardens, are are then prepared to ignore them until the spring. I am quite sure that a garden doesn't like to be ignored like this. It doesn't like to be covered in dust sheets, as though it were an old room which you had shut up during the winter. Especially since a garden knows how gay and delightful it can be, even in the very frozen heart of the winter, if you only give it a chance.

  Beverley Nichols

  Spring, Heart, Gay

  13 Copy quote

• It is only to the gardener that time is a friend, giving each year more than he steals.

  Beverley Nichols

  Years, Giving, Stealing

  Beverley Nichols (2009). “Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols”, p.126, Timber Press

  6 Copy quote

• A garden without cats, it will be generally agreed, can scarcely deserve to be called a garden at all...much of the magic of the heather beds would vanish if, as we bent over them, there was no chance that we might hear a faint rustle among the blossoms, and find ourselves staring into a pair of sleepy green eyes.

  Beverley Nichols

  Eye, Cat, Garden

  13 Copy quote

• To dig one's own spade into one's own earth! Has life anything better to offer than this?

  Beverley Nichols

  Life, Garden, Earth

  Beverley Nichols (2009). “Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols”, p.17, Timber Press

  19 Copy quote

• Do you ever find yourself bursting into a sort of lunatic laughter at the sheer prettiness of things?

  Beverley Nichols

  Laughter, Finding Yourself, Bursting

  Beverley Nichols (2009). “Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols”, p.112, Timber Press

  9 Copy quote

• I had never 'taken a cutting' before ... Do you realize that the whole thing is miraculous? It is exactly as though you were to cut off your wife's leg, stick it in the lawn, and be greeted on the following day by an entirely new woman, sprung from the leg, advancing across the lawn to meet you.

  Beverley Nichols

  Taken, Cutting, Garden

  6 Copy quote

• To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat.

  Beverley Nichols

  Flower, Garden, Overcoming

  12 Copy quote

• A gardener is never shut out from his garden, wherever he may be. Its comfort never fails. Though the city may close about him, and the grime and soot descend upon him, he can still wander in his garden, does he but close his eyes.

  Beverley Nichols

  Eye, Garden, Cities

  Beverley Nichols (1932). “Down the garden path”, Doubleday, Doran & co., inc.

  5 Copy quote

• Well, I love geraniums, and anybody who does not love geraniums must obviously be a depraved and loathsome person.

  Beverley Nichols

  Doe, Wells, Persons

  Beverley Nichols (1953). “Merry Hall”

  8 Copy quote

• Last summer I was staying at a house in Hampshire which was famous for the brilliance and the originality of its gardens. There were many of them, but the most beautiful of all was a walled garden in which every flower was blue. There were all the obvious things like delphiniums and acronitums and larkspurs, but the most beautiful blue of all came from the groups of cabbages - the ordinary blue pickling cabbage. Set against the blazing blue of the other flowers, it had a bloom and elegance which made it a thing of the greatest delight.

  Beverley Nichols

  Beautiful, Summer, Flower

  7 Copy quote

• As any psychologist will tell you, the worst thing you can possibly do to a woman is to deprive her of a grievance.

  Beverley Nichols

  Women, Psychologist, Grievance

  6 Copy quote

• A garden without cats, it will be generally agreed, can scarcely deserve to be called a garden at all.

  Beverley Nichols

  Cat, Garden, Animal

  Beverley Nichols (1968). “Garden open tomorrow”, Butterworth-Heinemann

  9 Copy quote

• The Oldfields of the future are beyond hearing; they are shut up in the factories and the workshops, leading a rackety and mechanical existence, to the damage of their bodies and the peril of their souls, for the sake of an extra pound or so a week, which they promptly spend on mental or physical narcotics.

  Beverley Nichols

  Soul, Body, Sake

  Beverley Nichols (1953). “Merry Hall”

  5 Copy quote

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