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For the last 40 years of my life I have broken my back, my fingernails, and sometimes my heart, in the practical pursuit of my favourite occupation.

Vita Sackville-West

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Vita Sackville-West
Age: 70 †
Born: 1892
Born: March 9
Died: 1962
Died: June 2
Author
Biographer
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Knole House
Knole
Lady Victoria Sackville-West
Victoria Mary Sackville-West
Lady Nicolson
Victoria Sackville-West
Victoria Mary Sackville-West
V. Sackville-West
Life
Pursuit
Broken
Lasts
Last
Fingernails
Back
Favourite
Sometimes
Occupation
Heart
Practicals
Years
Practical

More quotes by Vita Sackville-West

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Summer makes a silence after spring.
Vita Sackville-West
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A good start in life is as important to plants as it is to children: they must develop strong roots in a congenial soil, otherwise they will never make the growth that will serve them richly according to their needs in their adult life.
Vita Sackville-West
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There is nothing more lovely in life than the union of two people whose love for one another has grown through the years, from the small acorn of passion, into a great rooted tree
Vita Sackville-West
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Growth is exciting growth is dynamic and alarming.
Vita Sackville-West
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Ambition, old as mankind, the immemorial weakness of the strong.
Vita Sackville-West
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Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep.
Vita Sackville-West
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How subtle is the relationship between the traveler and his luggage! He knows, as no one else knows, its idiosyncrasies, its contents ... and always some small nuisance which he wishes he had not brought had known, indeed, before starting that he would regret it, but brought it all the same.
Vita Sackville-West
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Autumn in felted slipper shuffles on, Muted yet fiery.--Vita Sackville-West
Vita Sackville-West
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that pathetic short-cut suggested by Nature the supreme joker as a remedy for our loneliness, that ephemeral communion which we persuade ourselves to be of the spirit when it is in fact only of the body - durable not even in memory!
Vita Sackville-West
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For a young man to start his career with a love affair with an older woman was quite de rigueur ... Of course, it must not go on for too long. An apprenticeship was a very different thing from a career.
Vita Sackville-West
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I like muddling things up and if a herb looks nice in a border, then why not grow it there? Why not grow anything anywhere so long as it looks right where it is? That is, surely, the art of gardening.
Vita Sackville-West
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Of course I should love to throw a toothbrush into a bag, and just go, quite vaguely, without any plans or even a real destination. It is the Wanderlust.
Vita Sackville-West
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Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.
Vita Sackville-West
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Travel is in sad case. It is uncomfortable, it is expensive it is a source of annoyance to our friends, and of loneliness to ourselves.
Vita Sackville-West
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I loved you when love was Spring, and May, Loved you when summer deepened into June, and now when autumn yellows all the leaves.
Vita Sackville-West
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The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before.
Vita Sackville-West
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Flowers really do intoxicate me.
Vita Sackville-West
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The farmer and the gardener are both busy, the gardener perhaps the more excitable of the two, for he is more of the amateur, concerned with the creation of beauty rather than with the providing of food. Gardening is a luxury occupation an ornament, not a necessity, of life.
Vita Sackville-West
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Things were not tragic for us then, because although we cared passionately we didn't care deeply.
Vita Sackville-West
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The public, as a whole, finds reassurance in longevity, and, after the necessary interlude of reaction, is disposed to recognize extreme old age as a sign of excellence. The long-liver has triumphed over at least one of man's initial handicaps: the brevity of life.
Vita Sackville-West