Here are the 49 best handpicked poems from “The Secret Garden” by Frances Burnett:
From “One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.” to “She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep looking forward to the next morning.”
So if you want the best quotes from “The Secret Garden,” then you’re in the right place.
Let’s get started!
My Favorite “The Secret Garden” Quote
#1
“Thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful as electric batteries—as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.”
— The Secret Garden
This quote reminds me of how powerful our thoughts are and why we should be careful in choosing which thoughts we want to let stay rent-free in our minds.
It presents a caution to us that our minds are houses filled with powerful thoughts, like batteries, that might bring out the best or the worst in us.
Indeed, our thoughts are some of the most wonderful tools given to us, so we better decipher them to our advantage because our thoughts can become our actions, and our actions may become our habits.
Best Handpicked Quotes From “The Secret Garden” by Frances Burnett
#2
“You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things.”
— The Secret Garden
#3
“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.”
— The Secret Garden
#4
“‘Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,’ he said wisely one day, ‘but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.'”
— The Secret Garden
#5
“…and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay parties.”
— The Secret Garden
#6
“People never like me and I never like people,’ she thought. ‘And I never can talk as the other children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.”
— The Secret Garden
#7
“That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy.”
— The Secret Garden
#8
“I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sence enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us – like electricity and horses and steam.”
— The Secret Garden
#9
“She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong to anyone.”
— The Secret Garden
#10
“But the calm had brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of the worst, he actually found he was trying to believe in better things.”
— The Secret Garden
#11
“‘Listen to th’ wind wutherin’ round the house,’ she said. ‘You could bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it tonight.’ Mary did not know what “wutherin'” meant until she listened, and then she understood. It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which rushed round and round the house, as if the giant no one could see were buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in. But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very safe and warm inside a room with a red coal fire.”
— The Secret Garden
#12
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done. Then they begin to hope it can be done. Then they see it can be done. Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
— The Secret Garden
#13
“She was a sweet, pretty thing and he’d have walked the world over to get her a blade o’ grass she wanted.”
— The Secret Garden
#14
“In secret places we can think and imagine, we can feel angry or sad in peace. There is something to be said for just being, without worrying about offending anyone.”
— The Secret Garden
#15
“Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place. ‘Where, you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.'”
— The Secret Garden
#16
“One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts–just mere thoughts–are as powerful as electric batteries–as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.”
— The Secret Garden
#17
“Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With Silver Bells, and Cockle Shells, And marigolds all in a row.”
— The Secret Garden
#18
“In the garden there was nothing which was not quite like themselves – nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them – the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end… there could have been no happiness even in that golden springtime air.”
— The Secret Garden
#19
“One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver.”
— The Secret Garden
#20
“And they both began to laugh over nothing as children will when they are happy together. And they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old creatures—instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.”
— The Secret Garden
#21
“Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us.”
— The Secret Garden
#22
“He had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really more than half the battle.”
— The Secret Garden
#23
“You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you’re too curious.”
— The Secret Garden
#24
“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world, but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it.”
— The Secret Garden
#25
“Never thee stop believin’ in th’ Big Good Thing an’ knowin’ th’ world’s full of it – and call it what tha’ likes. Tha’ wert singin’ to it when I come into t’ garden.”
— The Secret Garden
#26
“To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman.”
— The Secret Garden
#27
“‘People never like me and I never like people,’ she thought. ‘And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.'”
— The Secret Garden
#28
“So long as I know what’s expected of me, I can manage.”
— The Secret Garden
#29
“The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off – and they are nearly always doing it.”
— The Secret Garden
#30
“As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.”
— The Secret Garden
#31
“My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they’re rich and important.”
— The Secret Garden
#32
“Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off and they are nearly always doing it.”
— The Secret Garden
#33
“I shall live forever and ever and ever ‘ he cried grandly. ‘I shall find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that grows – like Dickon – and I shall never stop making Magic. I’m well I’m well.”
— The Secret Garden
#34
“There’s naught as nice as th’ smell o’ good clean earth, except th’ smell o’ fresh growin’ things when th’ rain falls on ’em.”
— The Secret Garden
#35
“‘Might I,’ quavered Mary, ‘might I have a bit of earth?'”
— The Secret Garden
#36
“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that ‘she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow’.”
— The Secret Garden
#37
“As each day passed, Colin had become more and more fixed in his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one of its greatest charms.”
— The Secret Garden
#38
“Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.”
— The Secret Garden
#39
“Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way – or always to have it.”
— The Secret Garden
#40
“Other children seemed to belong to their fathers and mothers, but she had never seemed to really be any one’s little girl.”
— The Secret Garden
#41
“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”
— The Secret Garden
#42
“Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing.”
— The Secret Garden
#44
“It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.”
— The Secret Garden
#45
“Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”
— The Secret Garden
#46
“She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind.”
— The Secret Garden
#47
“’Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like?’…
‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…’”
— The Secret Garden
#48
“She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl’s simple stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away from everything she understood and which understood her.”
— The Secret Garden
#49
“She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep looking forward to the next morning.”
— The Secret Garden