
Source: Ashtanga Yoga Primer, 1981, p.20
"Letters written from my garden", 1853
Source: Ashtanga Yoga Primer, 1981, p.20
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.
“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
“No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.”
Section 7 : Spiritual Progress
Life and Destiny (1913)
“Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.”
Autumn, line 36.
Pastorals (1709)
"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)