“When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.”
“Weeds and nettles, briars and thorns, have thriven under your shadow, dissettlement and division, discontentment and dissatisfaction, together with real dangers to the whole.”
Speech dissolving the First Protectorate Parliament (22 January 1655)
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Oliver Cromwell 49
English military and political leader 1599–1658Related quotes
                                
                                    “For roses also blossom on the thorn,
And the fair lily springs from loathsome weed.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Che de le spine ancor nascon le rose,
E d'una fetida erba nasce il giglio. 
Canto XXVII, stanza 121 (tr. W. S. Rose) 
Orlando Furioso (1532)
                                    
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition
“Happiness is fugitive; dissatisfaction and boredom are real.”
Source: Emphyrio (1969), Chapter 5
                                
                                    “Who fain would sow the fallow field,
And see the growing corn,
Must first remove the useless weeds,
The bramble and the thorn.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Qui serere ingenuum uolet agrum
liberat arua prius fruticibus,
falce rubos filicemque resecat,
ut noua fruge grauis Ceres eat.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Poem I, lines 1-4; translation by H. R. James 
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book III
                                    
                                        
                                        A forsaken Garden. 
Undated