Source: The Book of Disquiet
“No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.”
"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)
From Heaven Taken By Storm, Soli Deo Gloria Publications edition, pg. 73.
“A stranger's rose is but a thorn.”
In Alien Lands, translated by Leah W. Leonard.
Section 7 : Spiritual Progress
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: By what sort of experience are we led to the conviction that spirit exists? On the whole, by searching, painful experience. The rose Religion grows on a thorn-bush, and we must not be afraid to have our fingers lacerated by the thorns if we would pluck the rose.
“There is darkness in light, there is pain in joy, and there are thorns on the rose.”
“Truths and roses have thorns about them.”
This is commonly misattributed because Thoreau wrote it in his journal June 14, 1838, but it was not original. This was a popular aphorism in his day, appearing in several collections of proverbs during his lifetime. Its origin is unknown, but it had appeared in print before his birth. E.g., in Joseph Dennie and Asbury Dickins, The Port Folio, vol.2, no.1 (July 1809) http://books.google.com/books?id=YrIRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA431, p. 431; and in Felipe Fernandez, Exercises on the rules of construction of the Spanish language http://books.google.com/books?id=LMIBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA228, 3rd ed. (1811), p. 228.
Misattributed
“There is no rose
Spryngyng in gardeyns, but ther be sum thorn.”
Bk. 1, line 57.
The Fall of Princes
