Confucius
Philosopher
"An orchid in a deep forest sends out its fragrance even if no one is around to appreciate it."
Orchids quotes
Orchids
39 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Myrtle Reed
Author
"Love is an orchid which thrives principally on hot air."
Oscar Wilde
Writer
"Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins."
Stephen Jay Gould
Paleontologist, Evolutionary Biologist
"Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components."
Scarlett Thomas
Author
"For other people, love is like some rare orchid that can only grow in one place under a certain set of conditions. For me it's like bindweed. It grows with no encouragement at all, under any conditions, and just strangles everything else."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside orchids — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Orchids quotes (page 1 of 2)
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"You like orchids?... Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption."
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"Have you ever noticed how much they look like orchids? lovely!"
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"The American way of stress is comparable to Freud's 'beloved symptom', his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest of orchids and does not want to be cured of. Stress makes Americans feel busy, important, and in demand, and simultaneously deprived, ignored, and victimized. Stress makes them feel interesting and complex instead of boring and simple, and carries an assumption of sensitivity not unlike the Old World assumption that aristocrats were high-strung. In short, stress has become a status symbol."
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"Orchids manufacture their intricate devices from the common components of ordinary flowers, parts usually fitted for very different functions. If God had designed a beautiful machine to reflect his wisdom and power, surely he would not have used a collection of parts generally fashioned for other purposes. Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components. Thus, they must have evolved from ordinary flowers."
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"I was left alone there in the company of the orchids, roses and violets, which, like people waiting beside you who do not know you, preserved a silence which their individuality as living things made all the more striking, and warmed themselves in the heat of a glowing coal fire."
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"Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people."
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"When I was fourteen, my father decided to initiate me into the ways of manhood, and took me to the local whorehouse. The woman spread her legs, and made me look between them. All I could see was something that looked like a dyin' orchid; consequently, I have never been comfortable around women or orchids."
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"I was fat! I was pustule-rich! I looked like a pink human grenade! When did I blossom into the irresistible little orchid that I am now? I don't know. Getting taller helps. It spreads out a bit."
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