Compost Quotes

• Nature demands a gift for everything that it gives, so what we have to keep doing, is returning [leaves & compost materials] back to the soil, then we're continuously giving the gifts to nature, because we have a return cycle.

  Geoff Lawton

  Giving, Demand, Soil

  41 Copy quote

• Information is like compost; it does no good unless you spread it around.

  Eliot Coleman

  Doe, Information, Spread

  55 Copy quote

• The organic gardener does not think of throwing away the garbage. She knows that she needs the garbage. She is capable of transforming the garbage into compost, so that the compost can turn into lettuce, cucumber, radishes, and flowers again...With the energy of mindfulness, you can look into the garbage and say: I am not afraid. I am capable of transforming the garbage back into love.

  Nhat Hanh

  Flower, Thinking, Looks

  86 Copy quote

• The ground's generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.

  Rumi

  Generosity, Trying, Grows

  74 Copy quote

• Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.

  George Meredith

  Death, Nature, Garden

  George Meredith (1862). “Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside: With Poems and Ballads”, p.203

  57 Copy quote

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• Compost makes houseplants very happy.

  Shalom Harlow

  Very Happy

  96 Copy quote

• Do not spread the compost on the weeds.

  William Shakespeare

  Weed, Confession, Garden Of Eden

  William Shakespeare, Isaac Reed, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1821). “The dramatic works of William Shakespeare ...”

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• Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what's past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker.

  William Shakespeare

  Weed, Past, Heaven

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Making Sense of Hamlet! a Students Guide to Shakespeare's Play (Includes Study Guide, Biography, and Modern Retelling)”, p.240, BookCaps Study Guides

  80 Copy quote

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• Kings and cabbages go back to compost, but good deeds stay green forever.

  Rick DeMarinis

  Kings, Forever, Cabbage

  52 Copy quote

• Never plant without a bucket of compost at your side.

  Elsa Bakalar

  Your Side, Buckets, Sides

  18 Copy quote

• My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first [compost] heap.

  Bette Midler

  Waiting, Firsts, Kind

  "Singing the Praises of Composting" by Jodi Wilgoren, articles.latimes.com. May 8, 1996.

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• But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Mistake, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.11

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• The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Fate, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.3, Cosimo, Inc.

  64 Copy quote

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• I find that a real gardener is not a man who cultivates flowers; he is a man who cultivates the soil. He is a creature who digs himself into the earth and leaves the sight of what is on it to us gaping good-for-nothings. He lives buried in the ground. He builds his monument in a heap of compost. If he came into the Garden of Eden, he would sniff excitedly and say: "Good Lord, what humus!"

  Karel Capek

  Real, Flower, Men

  Karel Capek (2002). “The Gardener's Year”

  33 Copy quote

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• With negative energy you can make the positive energy. A flower will become compost someday, but if you know how to transform the compost back into the flower, then you don't have to worry. You don't have to worry about your anger because you know how to handle it - to embrace, to recognize, and to transform it. So this is what is possible.

  Nhat Hanh

  Flower, Worry, Positive Energy

  "Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh". plumvillage.org. January 1, 2000.

  34 Copy quote

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• Tomorrow composts today.

  Bruce Sterling

  Today, Tomorrow

  "Shaping Things". Book by Bruce Sterling, 2005.

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• Producing quality compost is the most important job on the organic farm. A lot of the problems I see on farms I visit could be solved by making better compost.

  Eliot Coleman

  Jobs, Important, Quality

  Eliot Coleman (1995). “The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener, 2nd Edition”, p.99, Chelsea Green Publishing

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• We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. When your writing blooms out of the back of this garbage compost, it is very stable. You are not running from anything. You can have a sense of artistic security. If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Running, Hate, Writing

  55 Copy quote

• The gardener knows how to turn garbage into compost. Therefore our anger, sadness, and fear is the best compost for our compassion.

  Kayla Mueller

  Sadness, Compassion, Garbage

  20 Copy quote

• To turn ordinary clothes into gardening clothes, simply mix with compost.

  Guy Browning

  Clothes, Gardening, Ordinary

  17 Copy quote

• Never, ever rest on your laurels. Today's laurels are tomorrow's compost.

  Tom Peters

  History, Today, Tomorrow

  29 Copy quote

• The main characteristic of Nature's farming can therefore be summed up in a few words. Mother earth never attempts to farm without live stock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains are taken to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and animal wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the processes of growth and the processes of decay balance one another; ample provision is made to maintain large reserves of fertility; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease.

  Albert Howard

  Mother, Pain, Taken

  SIR ALBERT HOWARD, C.l.E., M.A. (0101). “An Agricultural”, p.12, Prabhat Prakashan

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• The longer I live the greater is my respect for manure in all its forms.

  Elizabeth von Arnim

  Form, Greater, Manure

  Elizabeth Arnim, Elizabeth Von Arnim (2005). “Elizabeth and Her German Garden”, p.219, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Old gardeners never die; they just very slowly turn into the most magnificent compost. But what a marvellous, active brew it is!

  Peter Cundall

  Garden, Turns, Magnificent

  7 Copy quote

• Nature does have manure and she does have roots as well as blossoms, and you can't hate the manure and blame the roots for not being blossoms.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Nature, Hate, Garden

  16 Copy quote