Sayings about Farming & Agriculture
The farmer hopes for rain, the walker hopes for sunshine, and the gods hesitate.~ Chinese Proverbs
You are not a man until you have plowed a field. ~ Finnish Proverbs
Measure the corn of others with your own bushel. ~ Yiddish Proverb
If you are going to go where corn grows, take a cutting tool with you. ~ Ethiopian Proverbs
Schoolmaster, stick to your books; farmer, to your pigs.~ Chinese Proverb
When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people. ~ Chinese Proverb
He who does not cultivate his field, will die of hunger. ~ Guinean Proverbs
Corn will look better in your neighbor’s field. ~ Polish Proverbs
Garden flowers larger, field flowers stronger. ~ Chinese Proverb
The more help in the cornfield the smaller the harvest. ~ Zimbabwean Proverbs
The chicken that stays in the farmyard, will peck the crumbs.~ Portuguese Proverbs
It’s easy to wad your neighbor’s field. ~ Namibian Proverb
The corn is not choked by the weeds but by the negligence of the farmer.~ Chinese Proverb
If the farmer is poor then so is the whole country.~ Polish Proverb
The farmer is a born philosopher, the aristocrat has to learn how.~ Polish Proverb
You can tell ripe corn by its look. ~ African Proverb
Fields have eyes and woods have ears. ~ French Proverbs
The farmer grows the corn, but the bear eats it. ~ Nepalese Proverbs
Black soil produces white bread. ~ Norwegian Proverbs
A mans greatest shortcoming is that he neglects his own field and weeds that of others. ~ Chinese Proverb
A farmer should not ride the king’s horse.~ Yiddish Proverb
There is no worse devil than a farmer who wants to be a gentleman.~ Lithuanian Proverbs
Two farmers each claimed to own a certain cow. While one pulled on its head and the other pulled on its tail, the cow was milked by the lawyer.~ Hebrew Proverb
He who walks through a field of onions, will smell like an onion. ~ Arabian Proverbs
Unplowed fields make hollow bellies; unread books make hollow minds. ~ Chinese Proverb
Manure is the farmer’s gold.~ Estonian Proverbs
Be first in the field, the last to the couch. ~ Chinese Proverb
What the farmer does not know he doesn’t eat.~ German Proverbs
A warrior dies in battle; a mountain climber on the rocks, but a farmer dies of old age.~ New Zealander Proverbs
Work improves the harvest better than the field itself. ~ Spanish Proverbs
Do not choose your wife at a dance, but in the field among the harvesters.~ Czech Proverbs
You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind. ~ Irish Proverbs
All the fruit is not found in just one field. ~ German Proverb
Praise the ripe field, not the green corn. ~ Irish Proverb
There are only two ways to reach the truth — with literature and agriculture. ~ Chinese Proverb
Quotations about Farming & Agriculture
To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over the plough or spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray are the things that make men happy. ~ John Ruskin
Agriculture engenders good sense, and good sense of an excellent kind. ~ Joseph Joubert
Like a gardener I believe what goes down must come up.~ Lynwood L.Giacomini
He who owns the soil, owns up to the sky. ~ Juvenal
“Agriculture, for an honorable and high-minded man,” says Xenophon, “is the best of all occupations and arts by which men procure the means of living.” ~ Amos Bronson Alcott
There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age. ~ Bill Bryson
Command large fields, but cultivate small ones. ~ Virgil or Vergil
If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science. ~ Samuel Johnson
No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer. ~ H. L. Mencken
If you tickle the earth with a hoe she laughs with a harvest. ~ Douglas William Jerrold
Corn is a greedy crop, as farmers will tell you. ~ Michael Pollan
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.~ John Greenleaf Whittier
The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways. ~ John F. Kennedy
Farmers only worry during the growing season, but towns’ people worry all the time.~ Edgar Watson Howe
He that sows his grain upon marble will have many a hungry belly before his harvest. ~ John Arbuthnot
Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own. ~ Samuel Johnson
Farming is a most senseless pursuit, a mere laboring in a circle. You sow that you may reap, and then you reap that you may sow. Nothing ever comes of it. ~ Joannes Stobaeus
An agricultural life is one eminently calculated for human happiness and human virtue. ~ Josiah Quincy
The master’s eye is the best fertilizer.~ Pliny The Elder
Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The land too poor for any other crop, is best for raising men. ~ R. Pocock
It is thus with farming, if you do one thing late, you will be late in all your work. ~ Cato The Elder
A farmer is always going to be rich next year. ~ Philemon
Agriculture is the noblest of all alchemy; for it turns earth, and even manure, into gold, conferring upon its cultivator the additional reward of health. ~ Paul Chatfield
Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Farmers are philosophical. They have learned that it is less wearing to shrug than to beat their breasts. ~ Ruth Stout
I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman’s cares. ~ George Washington
A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus. ~ Elwyn Brooks White
The farmer works the soil. The agriculturalist works the farmer. ~ Eugene F. Ware
Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can’t hurry the crops or make an ox in two days. ~ Henri Alain
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling; for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God. ~ Thomas Jefferson
A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine. ~ Anne Bronte
The day of fortune is like a harvest day, We must be busy when the corn is ripe. ~ Torquato Tasso
Our farmers round, well pleased with constant gain, like other farmers, flourish and complain. ~ George Crabbe
Time spent in the cultivation of the fields passes very pleasantly. ~ Ovid
Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.~ Goethe
The farmers are the founders of civilization. ~ Daniel Webster
The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Blessed be agriculture! if one does not have too much of it. ~ Charles Dudley Warner
Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food. ~ Book preview