Barren Quotes

• Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away.

  Arthur Helps

  Inspirational, Wise, Gratitude

  Sir Arthur Helps (1883). “Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd”

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• As one looks across the barren stretches of the pack, it is sometimes difficult to realise what teeming life exists immediately beneath its surface.

  Robert Falcon Scott

  Looks, Sometimes, Surface

  Robert Falcon Scott, Max Jones (2008). “Journals: Captain Scott's Last Expedition”, p.53, Oxford University Press

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• Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.

  William Shakespeare

  Memorable, Sea, Giving

  'The Tempest' (1611) act 1, sc. 1, l. [70]

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• In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.

  Shimon Peres

  Creativity, Technology, Land

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• Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Life, Single, Blessing

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)”, p.608, Delphi Classics

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• Our Lord never condemned the fig tree because it brought forth so much fruit that some fell to the ground and spoiled. He only cursed it when it was barren.

  Edwin Louis Cole

  Tree, Literature, Fruit

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• The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Learning, Political, Mind

  'Discourses on Art' (ed. R. Wark, 1975) no. 6 (10 December 1774)

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• Love is a sickness full of woes, all remedies refusing.

  Samuel Daniel

  Love Is, Woe, Sickness

  Samuel Daniel (1718). “The Poetical Works of Mr. Samuel Daniel, Author of the English History: To which is Prefix'd, Memoirs of His Life and Writings”, p.105

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• Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

  Tony Blair

  Party, Government, Principles

  Tony Blair (1997). “New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country”, Basic Books (AZ)

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• Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours ... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.

  Helen Keller

  Happiness, Kindness, Sadness

  Helen Keller (1920). “Out of the Dark: Essays, Lectures, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision”

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• Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.

  George Eliot

  Silence, Speech, Nests

  'Felix Holt' (1866) ch. 15

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• Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Revenge, Despair, Delight

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• It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.

  Alfred Whitney Griswold

  Criticism, Kind, Critics

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• The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.

  Gary Zukav

  Pain, Butterfly, Winter

  "Solstice Joy" by Gary Zukav, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 27, 2011.

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• I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.

  Claude Debussy

  Trying, Music Love, Tradition

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• The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan was like the trench warfare of World War I: never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrain.

  Peggy Noonan

  War, Mind, Battle

  What I Saw at the Revolution ch. 14 (1990)

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• But I owe it to the subject to say, that it has long afforded me what philosophy is so often thought, and made, barren of - the fun of discovery, the pleasures of co-operation, and the satisfaction of reaching agreement.

  J. L. Austin

  Fun, Philosophy, Discovery

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• Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression.

  T. E. Lawrence

  Men, Land, Desert

  T. E. Lawrence (2015). “Lawrence of Arabia: The Man Behind the Myth (Complete Autobiographical Works, Memoirs & Letters): Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Memoirs of the Arab Revolt) + The Evolution of a Revolt + The Mint (Memoirs of the secret service in Royal Air Force) + Collected Letters (1915-1935)”, p.59, e-artnow

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• All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.

  Wilfred Owen

  Want, Waste, Asks

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• Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Clever, Intelligent, Valleys

  "Culture and Value" by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Peter Winch, (p. 76e), 1980.

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• And this, really, is the story-within-the-story, because if you do not believe that hearts can bloom suddenly bigger, and that love can open like a flower out of even the hardest places, then I am afraid that for you the world will be long and brown and barren, and you will have trouble finding the light. But if you do believe, then you already know all about magic.

  Lauren Oliver

  Flower, Believe, Heart

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• It gives one a sudden start in going down a barren, stoney street, to see upon a narrow strip of grass, just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion, shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Iron, Giving, Justice

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• The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, Behold! the barren beach of hell At ebb of tide.

  Alexander Smith

  Beach, Sunset, Fire

  ALEXANDER SMITH (1856). “POEMS”, p.61

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• The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.

  Khalil Gibran

  Giving, Critics, Inventor

  "Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran". Book by Kahlil Gibran, translated by Anthony R. Ferris, 1962.

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• Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.

  Alexander Pope

  Husband, Mistress, Brides

  Epistles to Several Persons "To a Lady" l. 71 (1735)

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