“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”

— Teresa of Ávila

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Teresa of Ávila 55

Roman Catholic saint 1515–1582

@Remylifwatila

“A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

17th century proverb
Misattributed

“Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

212
The Symposium

“In the same manner as we are cautioned by religion to show our faith by our works we may very properly apply the principle to philosophy, and judge of it by its works; accounting that to be futile which is unproductive, and still more so, if instead of grapes and olives it yield but the thistle and thorns of dispute and contention.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 73
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“The wind is not helpless for any man's need,
Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Love is Enough (1872), Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow

“The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat’ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

The Lily
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

“Socially, women are the equals of men, without restrictions. The beings who shine and who bring forth are not made solely to lend or to give the heat of their bodies. It is right that the sum total of work should be shared, reduced and harmonized by their hands. It is just that the fate of humanity should be grounded also in the strength of women.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light

“Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: —
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902)
Variant: Mind is the Master Power that molds and makes, And we are mind. And ever more we take the tool of thought, and shaping what we will, bring forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. We think in secret, and it comes to pass, environment, is but our looking glass.

“Before man's fall the rose was born,
St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;
But for man's fault then was the thorn
Without the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.”

Robert Herrick book Hesperides

"The Rose" (published c. 1648). Compare: "Flower of all hue, and without thorn the rose", John Milton, Paradise Lost, book iv. line 256.; "Every rose has it's thorn", Poison, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".
Hesperides (1648)

“No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”

Démosthenés (-384–-322 BC) ancient greek statesman and orator

Ad Leptinum 162, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) (1897) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 511

“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”

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Teresa of Ávila 55

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