There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

The line frames beauty and consolation as matters of attention rather than circumstance. “Flowers” stand for small, readily available sources of pleasure—color, form, life—that persist even amid difficulty. The decisive factor is the viewer’s willingness to look: perception becomes an ethical and aesthetic choice. Read in light of Matisse’s art, it aligns with his lifelong pursuit of visual joy and clarity—an insistence that the world can be re-seen through a receptive, disciplined gaze. The quote is often used to encourage optimism, but it also implies effort: one must cultivate the habit of noticing, not merely wait for beauty to appear.