
Carolyn Vaughan wrote that "gardening is arduous, sometimes onerous, work," and Charles Dudley Warner said that it required "a cast iron back with a hinge on it."
But an old Chinese proverb states, "If you want to be happy for a week, take a wife. If you want to be happy all of your life, make a garden."
In an even lighter vein Ogden Nash said, "My garden will never make me famous, I'm a horticultural ignoramus. I can't tell a string-bean from a soy-bean, or even a girl-bean from a boy-bean."
Celia Thaxter was more serious when she stated, "He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul."
And of course Rudyard Kipling wrote:
"Oh, Adam was a gardener and God who made him, sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees
So when your work is finished you can wash your hands and pray
For the glory of the garden, that it may not pass away!
And the glory of the garden, it shall never pass away."