Vita Sackville-West quotes

Vita Sackville-West was an English poet, novelist, and garden designer, renowned for her literary works and influential gardens. A prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, her unconventional lifestyle and intense relationships inspired many. She became best known for her poetry, novels, and for designing the celebrated gardens at Sissinghurst Castle. Here are 61 of her quotes:

I have come to the conclusion after many years of sometimes sad experience, that you cannot come to any conclusion at all.

Vita Sackville-West

A man and his land make a man and his creed.

Vita Sackville-West

All craftsmen share a knowledge. They have held Reality down fluttering to a bench.

Vita Sackville-West

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.

Vita Sackville-West

I worshipped dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong.

Vita Sackville-West

Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong-Kong.

Vita Sackville-West

Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free, Magnificent in giving; she was blind To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, - but me!

Vita Sackville-West

Who could so watch, and not forget the rack Of wills worn thin and thought become too frail, Nor roll the centuries back - And feel the sinews of his soul grow hale, And know himself for Rome's inheritor?

Vita Sackville-West

I sing the cycle of my country's year, I sing the tillage, and the reaping sing, Classic monotony, that modes and wars Leave undisturbed, unbettered, for their best Was born immediate, of expediency.

Vita Sackville-West

Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.

Vita Sackville-West

Men of my age live in a state of continual desperation.

Vita Sackville-West

Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild Even in indignation, taking by the hand One that obeyed them mutely, as a child Submissive to a law he does not understand.

Vita Sackville-West

Their strength's eternal in their sight, They overtake the deer in flight, And in their arrogance they smite; But I am sage, if they are strong: Man's love is transient as his death is long.

Vita Sackville-West

The young men strained upon the crank To wring the last reluctant inch. They laughed together, fair and frank, And threw their loins across the winch.

Vita Sackville-West

And what have I to give my friends in the last resort? An awkwardness, a shyness, and a scrap, No thing that's truly me, a bootless waste, A waste of myself and them, for my life is mine And theirs presumably theirs, and cannot touch.

Vita Sackville-West

All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand, And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last Is the voice of the lonely land.

Vita Sackville-West

Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep.

Vita Sackville-West

It is quite true that you have had infinitely more influence on me intellectually than anyone, and for this alone I love you.

Vita Sackville-West

Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming.

Vita Sackville-West

Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards on the painted stair, Stiff the blazoned shield they bear, Or and gules, a bend of vair, Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards everywhere.

Vita Sackville-West

There are no signposts in the sea.

Vita Sackville-West

Nothing shows up the difference between the things said or read, so much as the daily experience of it.

Vita Sackville-West