Deserts are barren, inhospitable places where not much can survive. But that’s no problem for the spiky Cactus. These ultimate survivors are able to thrive in the planet’s toughest environments. Therefore it’s no surprise that these thorny little succulents are used a lot in quotes to denote resilience and the rest. So, here’s our pick of the best cactus quotes. Watch out, some are rather spiky!
1. “Adolescence is like cactus.” – Anais Nin
2. “During your struggle society is not a bunch of flowers, it is a bunch of cactus.” – Amit Kalanithi
3. “Nothing’s all bad. There are very beautiful flowers in the desert amidst the spikes and thorns. Just don’t let them take over. In the garden of love, there is little room for prickly things.” – Kate McGaha
4. “The one thing that seems to be consistent through all my work that I like, and I experimented a lot, is the viewer is allowed to meditate on something that normally we don’t stop and stare at, whether it’s people or a cactus.” – Richard Misrach
5. “Having fake friends is like hugging cactus. The tighter you hug, the more pain you get.” – Riza Prasetyaningsih
6. “The thorns are worth bearing for a flower.” – Kalinin
7. “In the desert of my heart, you don’t need to blossom to like a cactus.” – Richa
8. “In a world full of flowers, be a cactus.” – Kul Bhushan Negi
9. “People trample over flowers, yet only to embrace a cactus.” – James Joyce
10. “If you get struck by a cactus, consider it a cactus kiss. Because we all know love hurts.” – Jessica Anna Jones
11. “I remember very clearly someone saying, ‘Don’t shake hands with the cactus,’ and I thought, ‘Well, why not? What could possibly go wrong?’ Shaking hands is a friendly gesture.” – Benedict Cumberbatch
12. “The one who swallows cactuses with spines should not complain about hemorrhoids.” – Etgar Keret
13. “Deserts are very dry places, but plants can still grow there. Desert plants collect and use water in special ways.” – Julie Penn
14. “A cactus doesn’t live in the desert because it likes the desert; it lives there because the desert hasn’t killed it yet.” – Hope Jahren
15. “I’m an observer of life. I like to watch people, and I like to watch cactus. I like to talk to mountains and communicate with my friends in the other spheres and dimensions.” – Frederick Lindemann
16. “I consider it the highest compliment when my employees go out and start their own companies in competition with me. I always send them a plant to wish them well. Of course, it’s a cactus.” – Norman Brodsky
17. “The trees were in leaf and every plant was blooming, except for the cacti which were being stubbornly prickly.” – Anonymous
18. “What is the meaning of a cactus flower? It exists, that’s all.” – Marty Rubin
19. “So they drove again, Vivien sitting up and looking now, but as navigator only, letting the desert scratch its own thorny poetry on the enormous moon.” – Douglas Woolf
20. “Take the rose, most people think it very beautiful: I don’t care for It at all. I prefer the cactus, for the simple reason that it has a more interesting personality.” – Charles Proteus Steinmetz
21. “The desert works constantly to forbid it, and still the cactus blooms.” – Uma Gokhale
22. “I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, damn, I am less nurturing than a desert.” – Demetri Martin
23. “When the going gets tough, Just like golden barrel cactus, You bloom yellow And poesy drips from you Instead of tears.” – Neelam Saxena Chandra
24. “Well what I was going to say was that it reminds me of us because a cactus can grow and thrive without a lot of water and attention. Even if it gets neglected on a shelf, it can blossom and still develop into something beautiful.” – Rebecca Bloom
25. “It was the act of a gentleman, and Damian was as gentle as a cactus.” – Isabella Sheikh
26. “Only cactuses had perennial appeal. And cactuses were of no interest to her.” – Milan Kundera
27. “There are very beautiful flowers in the desert amidst the spikes and thorns. Just don’t let them take over. In the garden of love, there is little room for prickly things.” – Kate McGaha
28. “You can’t learn anything from saguaro cactus, from ocotillo. They are just passing through; their roots, their much-heralded dormancy in the dry season, these are only illusions of permanence. They know even less than you do.” – Barry Lopez
29. “Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.” – Rick Riordan
30. “If one can see beauty in the strength of how a cactus blooms in the desert. They would see beauty in the thorns it displays.” – Reena Sharma
31. “Loving you is like loving a cactus. You hurt me every time whenever I come close to you but still, I can’t stop myself from loving you.” – Esa
32. “Anger was simple, self-sustaining as a cactus. You couldn’t look too closely at it, lest the spines get you in the eye.” – Rebecca Scherm
33. “Every cactus blooms, some with little rooms, some give flowers that grow, others so small it won’t show! – Ana Claudia Antunes, Pierrot & Columbine
34. “People are not cactuses, they need plenty of water and, when talking about friendship, the water is our time.” – Birute Sol
35. “My dad is like a cactus – introverted and tough.” – Gary Anarchic
36. “Cactus classification is similar to fashion on women skirts: they first shorten improperly and then lengthen excessively.” – R. Foster
37. “Very often, people are obsessed with what others think of them. It’s like if a flower wants to be a cactus or a palm but it’s not. A flower is a flower, and that’s enough. That’s all you have to do is be a flower.” – Stjepan Hauser
38. “A cactus is a desert’s rose.” – Mashona Dhimaya
39. “It’s also the place where an 8-ft. cactus, the century plant, produces a huge yellow flower every great once in a while, like a robot proffering a bouquet. After the plant flowers, it dies.” – Anonymous
40. “I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.” – Mo Udall
41. “I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.” – Herbert Rappaport
42. “Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don’t have to sit on it.” – Joyce Meyer
43. “A whale is as unique as a cactus. But don’t ask a whale to survive Death Valley. We all have special gifts. Where we use them and how determines whether we actually complete something.” – Max De Pree
44. “Be sharp like a cactus, people are afraid to touch and not a sort of rubbish.” – Sophieya
45. “The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland. The fool will try to plant them in the same flower box.” – Vera Nazarian
46. “I’m like the trunk of a cactus… I take in a dose of culture and time with friends, then I retreat and go live on it for a while until I get thirsty again.” – Nancy Horan
47. “Hope is not a resting place but a starting point – a cactus, not a cushion.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
48. “Play with a cactus and you will get pricked!” – Anthony T. Hincks
49. “If seeds waited for perfect conditions to grow, there would be no plants in the desert.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
50. “She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.” – Jerry Spinelli
51. “It was the act of a gentleman, and Damian was as gentle as a cactus.” – Aishabella Sheikh