Rose Quotes

The rose has been a favorite flower of poets since poetry began. Maybe it's because like a poem, a rose can say so much without saying much at all. The soft silky feel of a fresh rose petal evokes tenderness; the fragrant scent of a fresh spring rose brings refreshment; the vibrant colors of red, pink, peach, purple, orange, yellow, and white roses remind us of the dazzling beauty of creation; and getting pricked by a thorn causes pain. Roses are a reflection of life. See what some of the great poets throughout history have said.

Quote	Attributed to
If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.	Algernon Swinburne
Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.	Alphonse Kerr
Had it lived long, is would have been Lilies without, roses within.	Andrew Marvell
But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.	Anne Bronte
You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered.	Antoine de Saint-Exupery
You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.	Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Can anyone remember love? It's like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never smell the perfume.	Arthur Miller
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.	Ben Hogan
Treaties are like roses and young girls--they last while they last.	Charles de Gaulle
A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom.	Chinese Proverb
And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies.	Christopher Marlowe
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.	Dale Carnegie
Why is it no one ever sent me yet one perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get one perfect rose.	Dorothy Parker
Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.	Edmund Spenser
She bathed with roses red, and violets blew. And all the sweetest flowres That in the forrest grew.	Edmund Spenser
I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.	Eleanor Roosevelt
O rose, who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet, But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat, Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.	Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?	Emily Bronte
I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds 'round my neck.	Emma Goldman
They are not, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream, Our path emerges for a while, then closes, Within a dream.	Ernest Dowson
The sweetest flower that blows, I give you as we part. For you it is a Rose, For me it is my heart.	Frederick Peterson
And she was fair as is the rose in May.	Geoffrey Chaucer
Which is loveliest in a rose? Its coy beauty when it's budding, or its splendor when it blows?	George Barlow
It will never rain roses; when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.	George Eliot
Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year.	George Gordon Byron
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie.	George Herbert
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.	George William Curtis
Those who don't pick roses in summer won't pick them in winter either.	German Proverb
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.	Gertrude Stein
Send two dozen roses to Room 424 and put "Emily, I love you" on the back of the bill.	Groucho Marx
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.	H. L. Mencken
Truths and roses have thorns about them.	Henry David Thoreau
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.	Henri Matisse
If the rose puzzled its mind over the question how it grew, it would not have been the miracle that it is.	J. B. Yeats
God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.	James Matthew Barrie
One may live without bread, not without roses.	Jean Richepin
At middle age the soul should be opening up like a rose, not closing up like a cabbage.	John Andrew Holmes
The red rose whispers of passion, And the white rose breathes of love; O, the red rose is a falcon, And the white rose is a dove.	John Boyle O’Reilly
They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, that all of thee we loved and cherished has with thy summer roses perished; and left, as its young beauty fled, an ashen memory in its stead.	John Greenleaf Whittier
I see a lilly on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful, a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.	John Keats
Parting they seemed to tread upon the air, Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart Only to meet again more close.	John Keats
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.	John Milton
Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.	John Milton
Days of wine and roses laugh and run away, Like a child at play.	Johnny Mercer
Yet, O thou beautiful rose! Queen rose so fair and sweet. What were lover or crown to thee, without the clay at thy feet?	Julia C R Dorr
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose	Kahlil Gibran
A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world.	Leo Buscaglia.
Love thou rose, yet leave it on its stem.	Lytton
Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.	Mark Overby.
Go pretty rose, go to my fair, Go tell her all I fain would dare, Tell her of hope; tell her of spring, Tell her of all I fain would sing, Oh! were I like thee, so fair a thing.	Michael Beverly
The perfume of roses are like exquisite chords of music composed of many odor notes harmoniously blended.	N F Miller
It is the month of June, The month of leaves and roses, When pleasant sights salute the eyes, And pleasant scents the noses.	Nataniel Parker Willis
From the thorn bush comes forth the rose.	Old Jewish Proverb
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.	Oliver Wendell Holmes
Roses are red, Violets are blue. I'm schizophrenic, And so am I.	Oscar Levant
The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses.	Ovid
And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air, The soul of her beauty and love lay bare.	Percy Bysshe Shelley
The world is a rose, smell it and pass it to your friends.	Persian Proverb
Time brings Roses.	Portuguese Proverb
How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!	Ralph Waldo Emerson
Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.	Richard Brinsley Sheridan
By cool Siloam's shady rill How sweet the lily grows! How sweet the breath beneath the hill Of Sharon's dewy rose!	Richard Heber
A relationship is like a rose, How long it lasts, no one knows; Love can erase an awful past, Love can be yours, you'll see at last; To feel that love, it makes you sigh, To have it leave, you'd rather die; You hope you've found that special rose, Cause you love and care for the one you chose.	Rob Cella
It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.	Robert Browning
Still more labyrinthine buds the rose.	Robert Browning
Oh, my luve’s like a red, red rose, That ’s newly sprung in June; Oh, my luve’s like the melodie That’s sweetly played in tune.	Robert Burns
The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple’s a rose.	Robert Frost
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still aflying, And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorow will be dying.	Robert Herrick
Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses.	Robert Louis Stevenson
They say roses are red And violets are purple, Sugar is sweet And so is maple surple.	Roger Miller
The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.	Salvador Dali
The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she.	Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sweet rose! Thy crimson leaves are happy little thieves.	Sir Arnold
Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose From out night's gray and cloudy sheath; Softly and still it grows and grows, Petal by petal, leaf by leaf.	Susan Coolidge
If I had a rose for every time I thought of you, I'd be picking roses for a lifetime.	Swedish Proverb
Footfalls echo in the memory, Down the passage which we did not take, Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden.	T.S. Eliot
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.	The Bible (Isaiah 35:1)
I am the rose of Sharon, the Lily of the valley	The Bible (Song of Songs 2:1)
The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.	Therese of Lisieux
When love first came to Earth, the Spring spread rose-beds to receive him.	Thomas Campbell
Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead. When Death claims the light of my brow No flowers of life will cheer me: instead You may give me my roses now!	Thomas F. Healey
The rose that all are praising Is not the rose for me.	Thomas Haynes Bayly
It was not in the winter Our loving lot was cast! It was the time of roses, We plucked them as we passed!	Thomas Hood
Rose! Thou art the sweetest flower that ever drank the amber shower: Even the Gods, who walk the sky, are amourous of thy scented sigh.	Thomas More
Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.	Thomas More
What though youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine	Thomas More
You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of roses will hang round it still.	Thomas More
Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.	Turkish Proverb
Thorns and roses grow on the same tree.	Turkish Proverb
A life with love will have some thorns, but a life without love will have no roses.	Unknown
Do not watch the petals fall from the rose with sadness, know that, like life, things sometimes must fade, before they can bloom again.	Unknown
Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says "For the woman I love", and the second, "For my best friend".	Unknown
Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, And so are you.	Unknown
The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.	Unknown
How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.	Victor Hugo
Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose.	Walter de La Mare
Oh, this is the joy of the rose; That it blows, And goes.	Willa Cather
I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.	William Butler Yeats
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled. Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.	William Butler Yeats
A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.	William Carlos Williams
It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.	William Carlos Williams
Loveliest of lovely things are they On earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.	William Cullen Bryant
The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows...	William Cullen Bryant
I know a little garden close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night. And have one with me wandering.	William Morris
There was a knight came riding by In early spring, when the roads were dry; And he heard that lady sing at the noon, Two red roses across the moon.	William Morris
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
He wears the rose Of youth upon him.	William Shakespeare
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.	William Shakespeare
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.	William Shakespeare
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.	William Shakespeare
Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose. For whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.	William Shakespeare
What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.	William Shakespeare
A primrose by the river's brim A yellow rose was to him. And it was nothing more	William Wordsworth
The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose.	William Wordsworth