“For roses also blossom on the thorn,
And the fair lily springs from loathsome weed.”

—  Ludovico Ariosto, book Orlando Furioso

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)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For roses also blossom on the thorn, And the fair lily springs from loathsome weed." by Ludovico Ariosto?
Ludovico Ariosto photo
Ludovico Ariosto97
Italian poet 1474–1533

Related quotes

Christina Rossetti photo

“Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth,
Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth,
Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,
Love is like a lovely rose, the world’s delight.
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Hope is like a Harebell; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

William Blake photo

“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)

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo

“The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;
The rocks are left when he wastes the plain;
The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,
These remain.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

A forsaken Garden.
Undated

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Robert Herrick photo

“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)

Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“A stranger's rose is but a thorn.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

In Alien Lands, translated by Leah W. Leonard.

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Source: The Complete Poems

“If man's heart bares thistles instead of rose who will dare to admire? Before roses cometh thorns, but people only see the thorns not the roses I bare.”

@Remylifwatila

Muhammad Alauddin Siddiqui photo

“If from a person's mouth comes a downpour of thorns, from yours should come the petals of a rose.”

Muhammad Alauddin Siddiqui (1936–2017) Islamic Sufi Scholar

Shaykh Muhammad Allauddin Siddiqui

Felix Adler photo

“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.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

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.

Related topics