A cactus is a plant that has over 2,000 different species. Cacti are commonly used as house plants and decorations. The plant can be found in dry habitats such as deserts, ranging in different places mainly in the North and South Americas.
The physical characteristics of the plant feature a thick trunk like stem, often spikes or barbs and certain species of cacti contain beautiful flowers.
Cactus plants range in different sizes, from being small like the peyote (Lophophora) to being big in size like the barrel cacti (Ferocactus and Echinocactus). A cactus can live to be up to 200 years old, but they grow at a slower rate compared to other plants because they have no leaves.
Cacti have a natural nectar that attracts ants, the ants actually help to protect the cacti because they attack smaller animals like mealybugs. Ants also protect the plants from getting discolored, and getting diseased because the ants work to keep fungi and bacteria at bay.
Cactus Quotes
- “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
- “Pretty fly for a cacti.” – Unknown
- “What a surprise. That boy doesn’t have the sense God gave a cactus.” – Kathleen Peacock, Hemlock
- “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
- “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
- “I’m ready to stop being ‘cacti’ and ready to start becoming ‘cactus’” – Unknown
- “Be a cactus in a world of delicate flowers.” – Unknown
- “During your struggle society is not a bunch of flowers, it is a bunch of cactus.” – Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
- “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. It has wonderfully adapted itself to its surroundings! It is the best illustration of the theory of evolution in plant life.” – Charles Proteus Steinmetz
- “I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.” – Mo Udall
- “I’ve met some pricks in my time, but you are the whole cactus.” – Unknown
- “Bloom where you are planted.” – Unknown
- “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, Wall to Wall
- “The world is full of cactus, but we don’t have to sit on it” – Will Foley
- “A creative person has to create. It doesn’t really matter what you create. If such a dancer wanted to go out and build the cactus gardens where he could, in Mexico, let him do that, but something that is creative has to go on.” – Katherine Dunham
- “Life is like a cactus, full of pricks but also very beautiful.” – Unknown
- “A cactus is just a really aggressive cucumber.” – Unknown
- “It was the act of a gentleman, and Damian was as gentle as a cactus.” – Aishabella Sheikh, Converting The Bad Boy
- “People trample over flowers, yet only to embrace a cactus.” – James Joyce
- “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
- “The Big Cactus… because if you come too close, you’re gonna get stuck.” – Shaquille O’Neal
- “I’m totally stuck on you.” – Unknown
- “People are not cactuses, they need plenty of water and, when talking about friendship, the water is our time.” – Birute Sol
- “Adolescence is like cactus.” – Anais Nin
- “My dad is like a cactus – introverted and tough. I’m a people person, like my mom, but I got my competitiveness from my dad. He came to this country from Belarus with nothing and built a real business. He’s my hero for giving me that need to run a business and for having enormous confidence in me.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
- “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
- “Hey, you’re lookin’ really sharp.” – Unknown
- “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, Unbecoming
- “Hope is not a resting place but a starting point, a cactus, not a cushion” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
- “In Mexico, when we want to speak deep secrets, we drink pulgue together. It is a drink made from the cactus plant, and when you take the bottle from your mouth, it leaves a string behind, between the mouth and the bottle, like a spider’s web. It shows that the truth sticks inside.” – Alejandro Jodorowsky
- “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
- “You’re as cute as my new cactus.” – Unknown
- “Only cactuses had perennial appeal. And cactuses were of no interest to her.” – Milan Kundera
- “Don’t jack off a cactus, you’ll only hurt your hand and the cactus’ feelings” – Tre Cool
- “The cardones cactus is very similar to saguaro cactus in Arizona. These cacti only grow in very specific, particular places.” – James Turrell
- “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
- “All good things are wild and free.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Be sharp like a cactus, people are afraid to touch and not a sort of rubbish.” – Sophieya
- “Reach for the stars, even if you have to stand on a cactus.” – Unknown
- “Too much detail can bog down any story. Enough with the history of gunpowder, the geology of Hawaii, the processes of whaling, and cactus and tumbleweed.” – Edward M. Lerner
- “Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.” – Enid Bagnold
- “Dear, succulent. I promise I’ll never desert you.” – Unknown
- “The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland. The fool will try to plant them in the same flowerbox.” – Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
- “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 cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.” – Jerry Spinelli
- “Key West is the place where your sickly house plant back in New York grows to 10 ft. 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.” – Edmund White
- “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, 1st Viscount Cherwell
- “Be your own kind of beautiful.” – Unknown
- The child will turn it around properly so that the fern is in the shade, and not the cactus. The moral of the story? Kids are smart.” – Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
- “Loving someone who doesn’t love you back is like hugging a cactus. The tighter you hold on, the more it’s going to hurt.” – Unknown
- “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
- “Best friends always stick together.” – Unknown
- “He’d always had a quickening of the heart when he crossed into Arizona and beheld the cactus country.” – Dorothy B. Hughes, The Expendable Man
- “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
- “‘You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as cactus,’ Catarina said, her voice flat. ‘Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy.’” – Cassandra Clare
45 Camping Quotes to Fuel Your Adventurous Spirit
Cactus Video – Time-Lapse Cacti Bloom
Take a minute and check out this fascinating video about Cacti.
Filmmaker Greg Krehel captures 15 varieties of stunning Echinopsis cactus flowers blooming in this incredible time-lapse.
The process happens overnight, and the flowers last for only a day, with a peak period occurring for a mere hour or two.
Summary
Cacti are commonly loved as a theme for home decor, you may also find them on clothing and accessories, on seat covers in someone’s car, or an actual cactus plant in a home or office.
These cactus quotes certainly will be a big hit with a cacti lover and some of them can even be used to inspire a person to be like a cactus.
I’m Alice Judy and AnQuotes is a fun hobby for me. We know that everyone loves a great quote and our mission here is simple – to be the best and most interesting quote site in the world! If you have quotes you would like us to cover, please contact us.