“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.”

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

“There is darkness in light, there is pain in joy, and there are thorns on the rose.”

“Last night we owned, with looks forlorn,
"Too well the scholar knows
There is no rose without a thorn" —
But peace is made! We sing, this morn,
"No thorn without a rose!"
Our Latin lesson is complete:
We've learned that Love is Bitter-Sweet!”

“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.”

“A stranger's rose is but a thorn.”

“Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.”

“He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.”

“Truths and roses have thorns about them.”

“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.”