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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse I made a Second Marriage in my house; favored old barren reason from my bed, and took the daughter of the vine to spouse.

  Omar Khayyam

  Daughter, Mother, House

  Omar Khayyam, “The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam”

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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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• 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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• 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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• Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day.

  Marguerite Duras

  Night, Men, Alcohol

  Marguerite Duras (1993). “Practicalities”, p.17, Grove Press

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• All travellers who had preceded me into the Barren Grounds had relied on the abundant game, and in consequence suffered dreadful hardships; in some cases even starved to death.

  Ernest Thompson Seton

  Games, Hardship, Cases

  Ernest Thompson Seton (2010). “The Arctic Prairies: A Canoe Journey”, p.3, BoD – Books on Demand

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• And nothing can we call our own but death
  And that small model of the barren earth
  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
  For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
  And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Kings, Stories

  1595 Richard. Richard II, act 3, sc.2, l.148-50.

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• Research has shown that a barren environment is much more damaging to baby animals than it is to adult animals. It does not hurt the adult animals the same way it damages babies.

  Temple Grandin

  Baby, Hurt, Animal

  Interview with Dr. Stephen Edelson, www.autism.com. February 1, 1996.

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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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• Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism.

  Louis Pasteur

  Skepticism, Skeptic, Tainted

  The Louisville & Nashville Employes' Magazine, Volume 20, p. 28, 1944.

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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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• My icons do not raise up the blessed savior in elaborate cathedrals. They are constructed concentrations celebrating barren rooms. They bring a limited light.

  Dan Flavin

  Blessed, Icons, Light

  Corinna Thierolf, Dan Flavin, Johannes Vogt (2009). “Dan Flavin: Icons”, Schirmer/Mosel Verlag Gmbh

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• A few men own from ten thousand to two hundred thousand acres each. The poor Laborer can find no resting place, save on the barren mountain, or in the trackless desert.

  Denis Kearney

  Men, Two, Hiking

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