“The Mind is Like a Garden” The Quote’s Definitive Source Collection
Comparing the human mind to a garden is a famous metaphor and a powerful quote in history. At its heart is an eternal truth, just as a garden requires deliberate cultivation to grow beautiful flowers, our minds demand careful attention to foster beautiful thoughts. Remembering this idea is a great way to act as a guardsman for the thoughts and images that influence our lives.
However, when one searches for the original author of this jewel of wisdom, they are met with different answers from different sources. The purpose of this piece is to serve as the definitive collection of everyone known to have said the quote throughout history. This way, you can choose your preferred source in your work and life. I hope you enjoy it.
"Your mind is the garden, your thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can either be flowers or weeds."
“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”
- James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
“The mind is a fertile garden – it will grow anything you wish to plant – beautiful flowers or weeds.”
“Your Mind is a Garden,
Your Thoughts are the Seeds.
You can grow Flowers
or weeds...”
- Osho
"The mind is a garden,"
— Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“The Mind is like a Garden.”
“We believe that 95% of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourself as you go throughout your day. The sad fact is that if you do not deliberately and consciously talk to yourself in a positive and constructive way, you will, by default, think about things that will make you unhappy or cause you worry and anxiety. Your mind is like a garden. If you do not deliberately plant flowers and tend carefully, weeds will grow without any encouragement at all.”
"His point is that we are what we think, and our lives run in the direction of our thoughts. If we think angry thoughts, we’ll be angry; if we think positive thoughts, we’ll be positive; if we think negative thoughts, we’ll be negative. The mind is a garden, and we have to cultivate it, and we are responsible for the kind of seed we sow into the furrows of our mind."
— Robert J. Morgan (100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart)
"Your mind is a garden, one that can grow beautiful flowers even in the rockiest of tundras, but it can also grow weeds. You’re the one who decides what seeds to plant. You’re the one who can choose to be happy here at the palace."
— Elle Middaugh (Taken by Storm)
"Imagine that your mind is a garden. You can tend to it in three ways: observe it, pull weeds, and plant flowers."
— Rick Hanson
"Your mind is a garden of happiness.
Keep your thoughts positive and
Let your flowers grow."
— Mehak Vijay
"the mind is a garden; what we decide to grow there will determine our prosperity"
— Yung Pueblo
"Your mind is a garden filled with beautiful ideas. Make time to nurture them."
— Jackie McShannon
Imagine your mind like a garden and your thoughts are the seeds.
You get to choose what seeds you plant in it.
You can plant seeds of positivity, love, and abundance.
Or you can plant seeds of negativity, fear, and lack.
You can also spend time trying to take care of everyone else’s garden.
Or you can work on making yours beautiful and attract other beautiful people to your garden.
"What do the words “plant” and “plan” have in common? Yes, correct, it’s the word PLAN. Mind Gardening is a mindful thinking and planning philosophy."
— Stan Jacobs
"Our mind is a garden, our thoughts are the seeds. We can grow flowers or we can grow weeds. Don't forget to water it.”
Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing.
- Jim Rohn
“The mind is like a garden,” he told me. “You choose what to grow: weeds or flowers.”
"Isabelle had always thought of her mind as a garden, a magical place to play as a child, when the grown-ups were having conversations and she was expected to listen politely-- and even, although she hated to admit this, later with Edward, her husband, when listening to the particularities of his carpet salesmanship wore her thin. Every year the garden grew larger, the paths longer and more complicated. Meadows of memories.
Of course, her mental garden hadn't always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn't looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn't paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of the one memory against another."
— Erica Bauermeister (The School of Essential Ingredients)
As you can see, this important piece of wisdom has been credited to many people. The good news is that everyone who was quoted as saying the phrase meant the same thing. So there shouldn’t be much confusion about the quote’s intended meaning, even if there is controversy about its author.
I hope this collection proves to be useful for you. I can understand why this quote is so sought-after. I wrote a blog piece about it myself. Thank you for reading and good luck tending to the garden of your mind.
Burak Uzun is an award-winning writer and a Certified Meditation Teacher.
Burak Uzun also co-wrote a feature film called Team Marco, which was featured in over fifty film festivals around the globe and was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
Please feel free to reach out to Burak here.
Learn more about SOCA LLC and Burak’s classes here.