A Quote by Swami Vivekananda

A golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one. Shri Ramakrishna used to say that, to pick out one thorn which has stuck into the foot, another thorn is requisitioned, and when the thorn is taken out, both are thrown away. So the bad tendencies are to be counteracted by the good ones, but after that, the good tendencies have also to be conquered.

Swami Vivekananda

Quote Topics

After Also Another Away Bad Both Chain Conquered Foot Golden Good Good Ones Iron Much Out Pick Say Stuck Taken Tendencies Thorn Thrown Used Which

Quote Author

Swami Vivekananda
Indian - Priest
January 12, 1863 - July 4, 1902

Even when you tear its petals off one after another, the rose keeps laughing and doesn’t bend in pain. “Why should I be afflicted because of a thorn? It is the thorn which taught me how to laugh.” Whatever you lost through fate, be certain that it saved you from pain.

Rumi

Nature shaped the claw to trap, and the tooth to kill, but the thorn...the thorn's only purpose is to hurt.

Mark Lawrence

A thorn in the flesh is nothing compared to a thorn in the conscience.

Adrian Rogers

Things are simply the way they are. They don't give us suffering. Like a thorn: Does a sharp thorn give us suffering? No. It's simply a thorn. It doesn't give suffering to anybody. If we step on it, we suffer immediately. Why do we suffer? Because we stepped on it. So the suffering comes from us.

Ajahn Chah

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

Colleen McCullough

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:While the Lily white shall in love delight,Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

William Blake

My God, I have never thanked Thee for my 'thorn!' I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my 'thorn;' I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my 'thorn.' Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.

George Matheson

There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.

Colleen McCullough

It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.

Emily Bronte

Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?

Swami Vivekananda

Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organizers are always good?

Frederic Bastiat

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

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?

Frederic Bastiat

Not being able to rebound better was a thorn in our foot.