Those who love daffodils love them a lot. And since daffodil season is speeding by, we thought we’d bring you some of the best daffodil quotes from gardeners, writers, artists and fellow fans of the flower.
We’ve organized the quotes by topic. Some quotes are folksy, some profound. Some are famous and many are hidden gems. We hope you find some old favourites and maybe some new ones, too.
Quotes About Daffodils
“Daffodils are an optimistic flower, and foolproof.”
—Tasha Tudor
“I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow, for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced…”
—Dorothy Wordsworth
“Picasso said that no one has to explain a daffodil. Good design is understandable to virtually everybody. You never have to ask why.”
—Hugh Newell Jacobsen
“I wonder what spendthrift chose to spill
Such a bright gold under my windowsill!
Is it fair gold? Does it glitter still?
Bless me! It’s a daffodil!”
—Celia Thaxter, “March”
“They sat on the big veranda at Ingleside, enjoying the charm of the cat’s light, the sweetness of sleepy robins whistling among the twilit maples, and the dance of a gusty group of daffodils blowing against the old, mellow, red brick wall of the lawn.”
—L.M. Montgomery, Rainbow Valley
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once, I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
—William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
“Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.”
—Robert Herrick, “To Daffodils”
Daffodil Quotes About Joy
“If one daffodil is worth a thousand pleasures, then one is too few.”
—William Wordsworth
“Life’s a dog and then you die? No, no. Life is a joyous dance through daffodils beneath cerulean blue skies and then, then what? I forget what happens next.”
—Edward Abbey, The Fool’s Progress
“And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.”
—William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
“I recall looking out the window at redbuds, dogwoods, daffodils, irises and pom-pom bushes, knowing exactly what heaven must look like—a spring day in Kentucky.”
—Ashley Judd, All That Is Bitter and Sweet
“Other flowers must have foliage to set them off, but daffodils can stand by themselves in a bowl, and their green and yellow dress brings all spring into the room. A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up—whether or not the sun is shining outside. Daffodils in a green bowl and let it snow if it will.”
—A.A. Milne, “Daffodils,” Not That It Matters
Quotes About Spring Daffodils
“I have seen the Lady April bringing the daffodils, bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.”
—John Masefield, “Beauty”
“Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March with beauty…”
—William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
“In time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how”
—e.e. cummings, “in time of daffodils (who know”
“I love spring flowers—daffodils and hyacinths are the ultimate flower for me. They are the essence of spring.”
—Kirsty Gallacher
“She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
‘Winter is dead.’”
―A.A. Milne, “Daffodowndilly”
“It is daffodil time, so the robins all cry,
For the sun’s a big daffodil up in the sky;
And when down at midnight the owl calls
‘to-whoo!’
Why, then the round moon is a daffodil too.
Now sheer to the bough-top the sap starts to climb,
So, merry my masters, it’s daffodil time!”
—Clinton Scollard, “Daffodil Time”
Quotes About Life and Daffodils
“The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils—waterfalls—and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in—these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks.”
—Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets, and uneventful nice days.”
—Alain de Botton
“What is meant by reality? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech-and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Picadilly.”
—Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
“A row of daffodils and red tulips nestled against the walkway beneath my feet. Stray weeds peeked up through the cracks in the concrete—a reminder that nature had the final say. No matter how much mankind bulldozed or built, all was vulnerable to Mother Nature’s whims.”
—Pamela Crane, A Secondhand Life
“Life is the greatest gift that could ever be conceived…A daffodil pushing up through the dark earth to the spring, knowing somehow deep in its roots that spring and light and sunshine will come, has more courage and more knowledge of the value of life than any human being I’ve met.”
—Madeleine L’Engle, Camilla
For a general collection of quotes about flowers check out our Flower Quotes article»
Feature image: Depositphotos; Image 1: Михаил Павленко
