Thistles Quotes

• The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower?

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Flower, Eye, Men

  Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star Papers: Or, Experiences of Art and Nature”, p.96, New York : Boston : J.C. Derby ; Phillips, Sampson & Company

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• All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Flower, Garden, Mind

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• If your thought is a rose, you are a rose garden; and if it is a thistle, you are fuel for the fire.

  Rumi

  Garden, Fire, Rose

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• All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble.

  William Halsey

  Inspirational, Courage, Adversity

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• I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Death, Kindness

  Abraham Lincoln, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (1950). “The Lincoln treasury”

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• Be thankful for the thorns and thistles, which keep you from being in love with this world, and becoming an idolater.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Being In Love, Being Thankful, World

  Spurgeon, Charles H. “The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon, Volume 39: Sermons 2289-2341”, Delmarva Publications, Inc.

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• Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Two, Rose, Secret Garden

  Frances Hodgson Burnett, General Press (2016). “The Secret Garden (Illustrated Edition)”, p.175, GENERAL PRESS

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• Untilled soil, however fertile it may be, will bear thistles and thorns; so it is with man's mind.

  Teresa of Avila

  Men, Mind, May

  Saint Teresa (of Avila) (1957). “The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus: Book of the foundations. Minor prose works. Poems. Documents. Indices”

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• What we sow in youth we reap in age; the seed of the thistle always produces the thistle.

  James Thomas Fields

  Age, Youth, Produce

  James Thomas Fields (1881). “Underbrush”

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• I wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight
  No I was all horns and thorns sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.

  Joanna Newsom

  Twilight, Thorns, Born

  Song: Sawdust and Diamonds, Album: Ys, 2006

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• Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.

  Teresa of Avila

  Men, Mind, Thorns

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• The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.

  William Morris

  Weed, Rain, Men

  William Morris (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of William Morris (Illustrated)”, p.3989, Delphi Classics

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• Gardens can be sharp and spiky as well as rose-embowered and honeysuckle-twined: there are corners and settings where thistles are not such an asinine taste after all.

  Robin Lane Fox

  Weed, Garden, Rose

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• A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles.

  Richard Burton

  Men, Gold, Riches

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• A crippled child Said, "How shall I dance?" Let your heart dance We said. Then the invalid said: "How shall I sing?" Let your heart sing We said Then spoke the poor dead thistle, "But I, how shall I dance?" Let your heart fly to the wind We said. Then God spoke from above "How shall I descend from the blue?" Come dance for us here in the light We said. All the valley is dancing Together under the sun, And the heart of him who joins us not Is turned to dust, to dust.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Children, Heart, Blue

  36 Copy quote

• Driving down the wrong road and knowing it, The fork years behind, how many have thought To pull up on the shoulder and leave the car Empty, strike out across the fields; and how many Are still mazed among dock and thistle, Seeking the road they should have taken?

  Damon Knight

  Taken, Should Have, Years

  Damon Knight (1986). “Man in the Tree”

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• When on the breath of Autumn's breeze, From pastures dry and brown, Goes floating, like an idle thought, The fair, white thistle-down; O, then what joy to walk at will, Upon the golden harvest-hill!

  Mary Howitt

  Autumn, White, Joy

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• If the braine sowes not corne, it plants thistles.

  George Herbert

  Plant, Ifs

  George Herbert (1861). “The poetical works of George Herbert and Reginald Heber: With memoirs. Eight engravings on steel”, p.274

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• Cursed be the ground for our sake. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for us. For out of the ground we were taken, for the dust we are and to the dust we shall return.

  Denzel Washington

  Taken, Dust, Thorns

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• I see, when I bend close, how each leaflet of a climbing rose is bordered with frost, the autumn counterpart of the dewdrops of summer dawns. The feathery leaves of yarrow are thick with silver rime and dry thistle heads rise like goblets plated with silver catching the sun.

  Edwin Way Teale

  Summer, Fall, Autumn

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• You can imagine thistle-down so light that when you run after it your running motion would drive it away from you, and that the more you tried to catch it the faster it would fly from your grasp. And it should be with every man, that, when he is chased by troubles, they, chasing, shall raise him higher and higher.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Running, Men, Light

  10 Copy quote

• Imagine your mind as a garden and thoughts as the seeds you plant. Habitual negative, unhealthy, self-critical thoughts produce the weeds and thistles of depression, discontent, and anxiety in the garden of your mind. Luckily, the opposite is also true. Consistently planting positive, healthy, constructive thoughts will yield a crop of beautiful feelings, such as gratitude, love, and joy.

  Sue Thoele

  Beautiful, Weed, Gratitude

  Sue Patton Thoele (2008). “The Mindful Woman: Gentle Practices for Restoring Calm, Finding Balance, and Opening Your Heart”, p.52, New Harbinger Publications

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• There would be no call for ecological campaigning had nature not been exploited and abused. We experience the ground now bringing forth thistles as soil erosion devastates formerly arable land and deserts overtake fertile farms. Rivers and the atmosphere are polluted thoughtlessly and we are fearful of the consequences of a depleted ozone layer and the devastation of the greenhouse effect. We are not quite at home in our world, and somewhere in each of us there is a nostalgia for a paradise that has been lost.

  Desmond Tutu

  Home, Rivers, Ozone

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• And never since harvests were ripened, / Or laborers born, / Have men gathered figs of the thistle, / Or grapes of the thorn!

  Phoebe Cary

  Men, Harvest, Figs

  Phoebe Cary (1868). “Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love”, p.202

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• [Admiral Nelson's counsel] guided me time and again. On the eve of the critical battle of Santa Cruz, in which the Japanese ships outnumbered ours more than two to one, I sent my task force commanders this dispatch: ATTACK REPEAT ATTACK. They did attack, heroically, and when the battle was done, the enemy turned away. All problems, personal, national, or combat, become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble. Carry the battle to the enemy! Lay your ship alongside his!

  William Halsey

  Courage, Two, Enemy

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