"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul."
"Although I went to college as a youth, I never considered it necessary to steep oneself in academic learning, in order to learn how to think. I welcome a fair and square, open and above-board fight on any subject, including this, but I despise a man who sneaks around under a cloak or cover of any society or clique to strike his blows."
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Source: 1926 Interview in the San Francisco Bulletin, 22 Jan.
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More quotes by Luther Burbank
"The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love. While I was conducting experiments to make spineless cacti, I often talked to the plants. . . . "You have nothing to fear," I would tell them. "You don't need your defensive thorns. I will protect you." Gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety."
"Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education."
"If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed."
"Less than fifteen per cent of the people do any original thinking on any subject. The greatest torture in the world for most people is to think."
"The greatest happiness in the world is to make others happy."