She says the secret to her positivity lies in the simplest of things: gratitude for each and every simple pleasure of life.
― Sudha Murty, Something Happened on the Way to Heaven: 20 Inspiring Real-Life Stories

Below is the original photo used to create this image. While taking an afternoon walk around Floyd, VA in the rain. Hanging baskets with a beautiful variety of flowers seemed to be outside every shop. I couldn’t resist these lavender petunias. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.

I put socks on first; a simple pleasure that requires more effort than shooting a man.
― Tahereh Mafi, Destroy Me

Below is the original photo used to create this image. Taken on.a summer afternoon, while on an afternoon walk around Floyd, VA in the rain. Hanging baskets with a beautiful variety of flowers seemed to be outside every shop. I couldn’t resist these purple petunias. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.

Inner peace is accomplished by understanding and accepting the inevitable contradictions of life—the pain and pleasure, success and failure, joy and sorrow, births and deaths. Problems can teach us to be gracious, humble, and patient.
― Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and it’s all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Below is the original photo used to create this image. While taking a walk around Floyd, VA on a rainy afternoon, my parents and I came across a farmers’ market and these remarkable and unusual flowers. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.

I adore simple pleasures, they are the last refuge of the complex.
– A Woman of No Importance

Below is the original photo used to create this image. I found this lovely and vibrant flower arrangement while sitting in a high-rise lobby in downtown Richmond, VA. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.

After all, the three of us were young. It wasn’t just about the pleasure of the flesh. No, it wasn’t that simple. The flesh is easy to satisfy. It’s the heart that is insatiable, the heart that needs to love, to despair, to burn with any kind of fire…That was what we wanted. To burn, to be consumed, to devour our days just as fire devours the forest.
― Irene Nemirovsky, Fire in the Blood

Below is the original photo used to create this image. While taking an afternoon walk around Floyd, VA in the rain. Hanging baskets with a beautiful variety of flowers seemed to be outside every shop. I couldn’t resist these lavender petunias. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.

I want to learn his body, find every pleasure it’s hiding. All this reverence and simple awe I feel when I touch him, feel his breath brush my skin.
― Aleksandr Voinov, Skybound

Below is the original photo used to create this image. While taking a walk around Floyd, VA on a rainy afternoon, my parents and I came across a farmers’ market and these remarkable and unusual flowers. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.

Then there are the simple things. The way she fits against my side when we’re sitting together. How she can silence my addled thoughts with one look. The sound of my name from her lips. The way she can make a moment, any moment, a thousands times better when she is there. How the simplest pleasures in life become exciting with the promise of sharing the experience with her.
― Erik Tomblin

Below is the original photo used to create this image. Taken on.a summer afternoon, while on an afternoon walk around Floyd, VA in the rain. Hanging baskets with a beautiful variety of flowers seemed to be outside every shop. I couldn’t resist these purple petunias. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.