“There's no dearth of kindness
In this world of ours;
Only in our blindness
We gather thorns for flowers.”
There's no Dearth of Kindness, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
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Gerald Massey 6
British poet 1828–1907Related quotes
Smith, The Oxford History of India, 462. Quoted from Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.
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.
“we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”
Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow
“If you count the thorns, the flower disappears.”
The Rains, Anyhow.
“Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely—flowers.”
"Israfel", st. 7 (1831).
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)
Context: Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, fellow citizens. As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our Union has never been stronger.
p, 125
Accent on Form: An Anticipation of the Science of Tomorrow (1955)
The Forerunner (1920)
Context: You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation of your giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation.
And I too am my own forerunner, for the long shadow stretching before me at sunrise shall gather under my feet at the noon hour. Yet another sunrise shall lay another shadow before me, and that also shall be gathered at another noon.
Always have we been our own forerunners, and always shall we be. And all that we have gathered and shall gather shall be but seeds for fields yet unploughed. We are the fields and the ploughmen, the gatherers and the gathered.