A Quote by Felix Adler

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.

Felix Adler

Quote Topics

Afraid Bush Conviction Exists Experience Fingers Grows Led Must Our Painful Pluck Religion Rose Searching Sort Spirit Thorn Thorns Whole Would

Quote Author

Felix Adler
German - Educator
August 13, 1851 - April 24, 1933

Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be grateful the thorn bush has roses. Perspective.

Lecrae

Some people are near- or farsighted - I'm thorn-sighted. The thorns on the rose are in really sharp definition for me, the rose petals a little fuzzier.

Danny Meyer

Entrance into the Old Ways begins with the pricking of a finger with a rose thorn, which produces a drop of blood. This opens the way into the Thorned Path, a system, which uses five rose thorns to symbolize the five arts of Witchcraft that one should master. These arts are Herbalist, Fortune-Teller, Spirit Medium, Mystic, and Magician. We call mastering these aspects 'the gathered thorns' --thus the Thorned Path.

Raven Grimassi

The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.

Charles Francis Richter

Before man's fall the rose was born,St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;But for man's fault then was the thornWithout the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.

Robert Herrick

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.

Khalil Gibran

The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple's a rose, And the pear is, and so's The plum, I suppose. The dear only knows What will next prove a rose. You, of course, are a rose - But were always a rose.

Robert Frost

The puritan through life's sweet garden goes to pluck the thorn and cast away the rose.

Kenneth Hare

Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows;Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd bower.Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn,She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn.

Robert Greene

God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose's thorns when we gather it; and the other's when we have had it for some time.

Walter Savage Landor

Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth,Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth,Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,Love is like a lovely rose, the world's delight.Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.

Christina Rossetti

While someone who is working out of ordinary science can speak from memory, the scientist of the spirit has to repeat the steps that once led him to the experience or discovery of which he is speaking. The whole process must be generated over again as a fresh, original experience.

Rudolf Steiner

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

William Shakespeare

...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me when I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor--they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.

Albion Fellows Bacon

I would not be a rose upon the wall A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, To say to a courtier, "Pluck that rose for me, It's prettier than the rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden by his foot, Than lie in a great queen's bosom.