These top 200 rose quotes will give you all the inspiration and knowledge you need to understand the complexities of life.
So, be sure you read through the full collection below that talks about romance, life, adversity, and many more.
‘Every rose has its thorn,’ is a phrase you’ve probably heard at least once in your life. And it’s so fitting for all the roadblocks and challenges we face in life.
Learn more about yourself by learning more about the rose.
Read below to find out more.
And make sure to check out these lavender quotes and daffodil quotes too.
Best Rose Quotes
1. “Just like the rose holds her beauty among the thorns, we can gather our strength from the most unlikely places.” – Christine Evangelou
2. “Roses do not bloom hurriedly; for beauty, like any masterpiece, takes time to blossom.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
3. “In a world full of roses, stand out like a dandelion in the middle of a green, plush lawn!” – June Stoyer
4. “As delicate as flowers, as tender as rose petals, choosing to be tender and kind in a harsh environment is not weakness, it’s courage.” – Luffina Lourduraj
5. “A rose does not answer its enemies with words, but with beauty.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
6. “Dear Superwoman, remember that a rose does not stop looking beautiful because of the thorns around it. So, never allow weaknesses to stop you from admiring your own strengths.” – Gift Gugu Mona
7. “The gentle rose offers a powerful joy known only to the heart.” – Andrew Pacholyk
8. “The rose that is democracy has its own thorns. We have to bear with it.” – Don Santo
9. “If you know how to make people happy with a single look, then you are a rose! If you know how to hurt people with a single touch, then you’re a thorn!” – Mehmet Murat ildan
Also read: Cactus Quotes
Rose Quotes on Identity
10. “The rose is fairest when it is budding new, and hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.” – Sir Walter Scott
11. “If roses tried to be sunflowers, they would lose their beauty; and if sunflowers tried to be roses, they would lose their strength.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
12. “The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change. Yet, at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.” – Paulo Coelho
13. “If roses were not special, weeds would not envy them.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
14. “For the rose, though its petals be torn asunder, still smiles on, and it is never cast down.” – Rumi
15. “A cactus is a desert’s rose.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
16. “You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, but the scent of the roses will hang round it still.” – Thomas Moore
17. “Original daisies are worth more than counterfeit roses.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
18. “Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” – Alphonse Karr
19. “Thorns and roses grow on the same tree.” – Turkish Proverb
Rose Quotes on Thorns, Suffering, and Pain
20. “The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses.” – Ovid
21. “A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom.” – Chinese Proverb
22. “The more you love roses, the more you must bear with thorns.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
23. “If you enjoy the fragrance of a rose, you must accept the thorns which it bears.” – Isaac Hayes
24. “Roses fall, but the thorns remain.” – Dutch Proverb
25. “Count the roses, not the thorns.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
26. “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.” – Kahlil Gibran
27. “A rose isn’t quite as beautiful as it once was, when after its thorn pricks you.” – Anthony Liccione
28. “A rose with ten thousand thorns is still more valuable than a daisy without even one.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
29. “No rose without a thorn.” – French Proverb
30. “A rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.” – Rumi
31. “Where there are no thorns there are no roses.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
32. “But he that dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose.” – Anne Bronte
33. “Discipline trains you to put up with disappointments, every rose has a thorn.” – Sai Baba
34. “The rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together.” – Saadi
Rose Quotes on Beauty and Strength
35. “If the rose is a beautiful flower, it is also because it opens itself.” – Charles De Leusse
36. “Roses never propagandize, but their own fragrance spreads surrounding.” – Sukarno
37. “A rose in a desert can only survive on its strength, not its beauty.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
38. “The more you focus on the beauty of roses, the more invisible their thorns become; and an anthophile will never stop loving roses even when their thorns harm him. Therefore, this is how love should be!” – Bruce Mbanza Bugaboo
39. “If a rose is full of thorns, it does not mean it’s not full of beauty.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
40. “Real beauty is in the fragility of your petals. A rose that never wilts isn’t a rose at all.” – Crystal Woods
41. “A rose does not lose sleep because it was mocked by weeds.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
42. “Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose—you can smell it and that is all.” – W. Somerset Maugham
43. “Have you ever watched a rose as it fades away; the color becomes deeper as the petals dry. That’s how my love for you deepens as the days go by.” – Anonymous
44. “A rose that grows without a thorn is robbed of its beauty.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
45. “What a lovely thing a rose is!” – Arthur Conan Doyle
46. “There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
47. “A rose, no matter how beautiful, still has to contend with thorns.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
48. “Beauty without virtue is like a rose without scent.” – Anonymous
49. “The rose is without an explanation; she blooms, because she blooms.” – Angelus Silesius
Rose Quotes on Life
50. “Life is like a rose garden—watch for the thorns and keep the pest dust handy.” – Anonymous
51. “Everybody loves roses. They are the symbol of virtually everywhere, from England to North Dakota. They are an international icon for innocence, and beauty, and rugby; the knee-jerk favorite of politicians, poets, and other enemies of civilization.” – Charlotte Mendelson
52. “A rose dreams of enjoying the company of bees, but none appears. The sun asks, ‘Aren’t you tired of waiting?’ ‘Yes,’ answers the rose, ‘but if I close my petals, I will wither and die.’” – Paulo Coelho
53. “God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.” – J. M. Barrie
54. “This rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
55. “A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true.” – Ray Evans
56. “Life is not always going to be roses and rainbows. You are going to have uncomfortable moments. It’s what we do with those moments that is going to count and determine our destiny.” – Lana
57. “A life with love must have some thorns, but a life with no love will have no roses.” – Anonymous
58. “We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.” – Bernard Williams
59. “I can’t feel bad about being who I am, just like the girl next to me can’t feel bad about being who she is. Because a rose can never be a sunflower, and a sunflower can never be a rose.” – Miranda Kerr
60. “Do not watch the petals fall from the rose with sadness, know that, like life, things sometimes must fade, before they can bloom again.” – Anonymous
61. “When life throws thorns, hunt for roses.” – Anonymous
62. “Friends are the roses of life. Pick them carefully and avoid the thorns!” – Anonymous
63. “In the garden of thy heart, plant naught but the rose of love.” – Bahaullah.
64. “The Peace Rose—when the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix
Rose Quotes That Will Make You Think
65. “When the devil offers you a rose, its petals are laced with poison.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
66. “Those who don’t pick roses in summer won’t pick them in winter either.” – German Proverb
67. “Death offers you thorns, eternity offers you roses, and life offers you both.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
68. “The mind is a red rose with thorns. Don’t get too close.” – Bert McCoy
69. “If the rose puzzled its mind over the question of how it grew, it would not have been the miracle that it is.” – J. B. Yeats
70. “We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie
71. “Take time to smell the roses.” – Proverb
72. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” – Abraham Lincoln
73. “Some women feel the need to act like they’re never scared, needy or hurt—like they’re as hardened as a man. I think that’s dishonest. It’s ok to feel delicate sometimes.” – Crystal Woods
74. “I love rose gold—it’s just beautiful, and classy, and timeless.” – Madelaine Petsch
Romantic Rose Quotes
75. “Her lips like a dew on a red rose, her eyes like a rainbow. In every drop of rain, a walking goddess glistened like a diamond.” – Kshana Surya
76. “Her heart was tender as a rose, his love protected her heart, as a thorn that protects the rose.” – Luffina Lourduraj
77. “A relationship is like a rose. How long it lasts, no one knows.” – Rob Cella
78. “It’s the time that you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important. People have forgotten this truth, but you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
79. “World without poetry is like a lover without a rose.” – Shiny
80. “Love is like a rose. When pressed between two lifetimes, it will last forever.” – Anonymous
81. “True love is like little roses—sweet, fragrant in small doses.” – Ana Claudia Antunes
82. “Every breath of her flowers a rose in my garden.” – Kshana Surya
83. “Forgiveness is the scent that the rose leaves on the heel that crushes it.” – Anonymous
84. “When love came first to earth, the Spring spread rose beds to receive him.” – Thomas Campbell
85. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare
86. “Love is a rose, but you’d better not pick it, it only grows when it’s on the vine. Handful of thorns and you know you’ve missed it. Lose your love when you say the word ‘mine.’” – Neil Young
87. “Go, lovely rose! Tell her that wastes her time and me. That now she knows, when I resemble her to thee, how sweet and fair she seems to be.” – Edmund Waller
88. “But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
89. “And she was fair as is the rose in May.” – Geoffrey Chaucer
Rose Quotes on Love, Friendship, and Family
90. “True friendship is like a rose—we don’t realize its beauty until it fades.” – Anonymous
91. “A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.” – Hada Bejar
92. “There may be many flowers in one’s life, but only one rose.” – Anonymous
93. “A life filled with love must have some thorns, but a life empty of love will have no roses.” – Anonymous
94. “Love and a red rose can’t be hidden.” – Thomas Holcroft
95. “This love is the rose that blooms forever.” – Rumi
96. “The world is a rose. Smell it, and pass it to your friends.” – Persian Proverb
97. “Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.” – Mark Overby
98. “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
99. “A woman is like a rose. If you take good care of her, you will see love blossom.” – Anonymous
100. “If I had a rose for every time I thought of you, I’d be picking roses for a lifetime.” – Swedish Proverb
101. “My love is like a rose divided into two—the leaves I give to others, but the rose I give to you.” – Anonymous
102. “Roses are red, violets are blue, I’ll never love someone the way I love you.” – Anonymous
103. “A single rose can be my garden; a single friend, my world.” – Leo Buscaglia
104. “The rose is the flower of love. The world has acclaimed it for centuries. Pink roses are for love, hopeful and expectant. White roses are for love, dead or forsaken, but the red roses, ah the red roses are for love, triumphant.” – Anonymous
Meaningful Rose Quotes
105. “Truths and roses have thorns about them.” – Henry David Thoreau
106. “One rose is enough for the dawn.” – Edmond Jabes
107. “It will never rain roses. When we want to have more roses, we must plant more trees.” – George Eliot
108. “I think life is full of challenges and problems. I don’t believe that anyone is perfect. We all make mistakes. It’s not a bed of roses, and you have to work real hard at it.” – Nigel Mansell
109. “Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.” – Tupac Shakur
110. “I’d rather let you cover all my roads with thorns than with dead roses.” – Nema Al-Araby
111. “A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.” – William Carlos Williams
112. “Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.” – Frances Hodgson Burnett
113. “The rose is fairest when it’s budding new, and hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.” – Sir Walter Scott
114. “Just remember, during the winter, far beneath the bitter snow, that there’s a seed that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes a rose.” – Bette Midler
Funny Rose Quotes
115. “Smell the roses. Smell the coffee. Whatever it is that makes you happy.” – Rita Moreno
116. “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 Dalí
117. “I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.” – Emma Goldman
118. “I don’t know whether nice people tend to grow roses or growing roses makes people nice.” – Roland A. Browne
119. “You’d get a lot more work done if you didn’t stop and smell the roses so often.” – Anonymous
120. “If you really screw up, send roses.” – Letitia Baldrige
121. “A rose is a rose is a rose.” – Gertrude Stein
122. “Roses are red, violets are blue, but I wouldn’t know since I don’t get them from you.” – Anonymous
123. “My life is part humor, part roses, part thorns.” – Bret Michaels
124. “At middle age, the soul should be opening up like a rose, not closing up like a cabbage.” – John Andrew Holmes
125. “I named all my children after flowers. There’s Lillie and Rose and my son, Artificial.” – Bert Williams
126. “I never promised you a rose garden.” – Traian Basescu
127. “A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind.” – Clive Bell
128. “Don’t divorce your wife. Bring her a dozen roses; the shock will kill her, and you can use the roses for the funeral.” – Evan Esar
129. “One may live without bread, not without roses.” – John Richepin
Rose Quotes on Adversity
130. “You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.” – Ziggy
131. “We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed, and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting.” – Charles Bukowski
132. “The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.” – Richter
133. “Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone, and more fragile than a rose.” – Turkish Proverb.
134. “A rose to the living is more than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.” – Nixon Waterman
Inspiring Rose Quotes
135. “Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.” – Katharine Lee Bates
136. “Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.” – Edmund Spenser
137. “One rose says more than the dozen.” – Wendy Craig
138. “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 C. Bryant
139. “The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.” – Anonymous.
140. “A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—one perfect rose.” – Dorothy Parker
141. “Life is a mosaic of pleasure and pain—grief is an interval between two moments of joy. Peace is the interlude between two wars. You have no rose without a thorn; the diligent picker will avoid the pricks and gather the flower. There is no bee without the sting; cleverness consists in gathering the honey nevertheless.” – Sri Sathya Sai Baba
142. “The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of it’s 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
143. “What though youth gave love and roses, age still leaves us friends and wine.” – Thomas Moore
144. “As you walk down the fairway of life, you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.” – Ben Hogan
Amusing Rose Quotes
145. “Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.” – Richard Brinsley Sheridan
146. “The rose has thorns only for those who would gather it.” – Chinese Proverb
147. “None of this matters to the rose keepers of Elizabeth. From the backyards of row houses, they bring forth pink roses, yellow roses, and around a house on its own green plot, a hedge of roses, in red and white.” – Kathleen Noris
148. “All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves.” – Robert Browning.
149. “Have you heard the story of the rose that blooms in the night? Without the sun’s presence, she grew from her own light. She did not yearn for his warmth on her petals for she knew she held the power to radiate light from within. Though she had strong thorns, her heart was always open. For those with an open heart can never be broken.” – Allie Michelle
150. “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
151. “But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, for winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed.” – John Keats
152. “I should own up that for me, growing roses is all about creating a cheap supply of fabulous, favorite blooms. I’m no Martha Stewart; I just love cutting flowers and bringing them into the house where I can focus on their beauty.” – Jane Eastoe
153. “I have crushed the cup of youth like a rose between my fingers but its nectar never warmed my weary heart.” – Jon English
154. “A work of art is like a rose. A rose is not beautiful because it is like something else. Neither is a work of art. Roses and works of art are beautiful in themselves.” – Clive Bell
White Rose Quotes
155. “Whenever I have a problem, I ask the Saint (Thérèse of Lisieux) not to solve it, but to take it into her hands and to help me accept it and I almost always receive a white rose as a sign.” – Pope Francis
156. “From off this brier, pluck a white rose with me.” – William Shakespeare
157. “Τhen, as though it had been waiting on a nearby roof for their arrival, the moon came slanting suddenly through the vines and turned the girl’s face the color of white roses.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
158. “Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose. For whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.” – William Shakespeare
159. “I can’t have white roses. They symbolize death.” – Nina Arianda
Red Rose Quotes
160. “When you transplant a rose, transplant the reddest one.” – Marty Rubin
161. “I like roses as red as blood. I smell lilies as white as milk. I grow irises as purple as my dreams. So, let me give you peonies as pink as my kiss.” – Alena Shubina Lis
162. “Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.” – William Shakespeare
163. “A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.” – Oscar Wilde
164. “Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.” – William Shakespeare
Heartfelt and Wise Rose Quotes
165. “Days of wine and roses laugh and run away, like a child at play.” – Johnny Mercer
166. “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
167. “A rose is an argument. It proclaims the triumph of beauty over brutality, of gentleness over violence, of the ephemeral over the lasting, and of the universal over the particular.” – Alain Meilland
168. “I personally think that a bouquet of white roses is simple, chic, and surprisingly long-lasting.” – Jeremiah Brent
169. “It’s a rare man that understands the value of a perfect rose.” – Mary Alice Young
170. “It’s never easy to lose. But life is not all sunshine and roses.” – AB de Villiers
171. “Love is accepting the shit as well as the roses. I think I failed to ever smell the bullshit. I only smelled the roses and never realized that it is the shit that makes the roses bloom.” – Monika Basile
172. “She did not need anyone else’s love when she had roses.” – Rumi
173. “I’d love to have the whole place swimming in roses.” – James Joyce
174. “I was too busy admiring the petals that I forgot about the thorns.” – Orion Carloto
Rose Quotes That’ll Make You Appreciate Its Significance and Beauty
175. “Love is the only thing in this whole universe that can make the roses grow out of the swords.” – Akshay Vasu
176. “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 the perfume.” – Arthur Miller
177. “A mother’s love is like an everlasting bed of roses that continues to blossom. A mother’s love bears strength, comfort, healing and warmth. Her beauty is compared to a sunny day that shines upon each rose petal and inspires hope.” – Ellen J. Barrier
178. “Love is like a rose: we fixate on the blossom, but it’s the thorny stem that keeps it alive and aloft. I think marriage is like that.” – Richard Paul Evans
179. “I like to think that love is like a rose. A rose that is beginning to sprout is like a person feeling love for the first time. It will grow in time as the couples interact and along the way, they may hurt themselves by the thorns of pain and misunderstanding. But it is all worth it to see the rose in full bloom as the two share their true love. What happens after that is unknown. The rose may last forever and create others, or it may wither away and start anew.” – Michelle Goncalves
180. “I’ve come to believe that the true splendor of roses shines through their reflection in the eyes of our loved ones. That is why we give roses to people we love; to show them the reflection of beauty and splendor of love in our own eyes, as we see it in their eyes.” – Mawuena Addo
181. “Something with inner beauty will live forever, like the scent of a rose.” – Alex Flinn
182. “Τhese roses, only half awake, in the defenselessness of utter beauty.” – Willa Cather
183. “Which is loveliest in a rose? Its coy beauty when it’s budding, or its splendor when it blows?” – George Barlow
184. “Her lips? The early morning rose would wither on the branch if it could feel envy.” – William Shakespeare
More Rose Quotes
185. “Wild roses are fairest, and nature is a better gardener than art.” – Louisa May Alcott
186. “Like freshly cut roses, I place life in a vase of love.” – Kamand Kojouri
187. “Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.” – Charles De Gaulle
188. “The one who was afraid of the pricking roses, plunged himself into an abyss without petals.” – Nur Bedeir
189. “Some people are like thorns. But you have to let them be thorns, because thorns can’t turn into petals. The trick is not letting them prick you; never let a thorn prick you!” – C. JoyBell C.
190. “You hope you’ve found that special rose, ‘cause you love and care for the one you chose.” – Rob Cella
191. “I have brought you the rose of love, and you have crowned me, in these dark hours, with their thorns.” – Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann
192. “Poetry without truth, is like a rose without thorns. Still pretty, but sometimes, the real beauty comes from the things that can make us bleed.” – Cody Edward Lee Miller
193. “Why are roses kept for their blossoms rather than shunned for their thorns?” – J. Aleksandr Wootton
194. “Most women suffer thorns for the sake of the flowers, but we who wield power adorn ourselves with flowers to hide the sting of our thorns.” – Leigh Bardugo
195. “Roses are teaching that the beauty of life will bloom, once you have taught yourself the lessons given by living with the thorns.” – Grigoris Deoudis
196. “I looked at you and only saw beautiful because legendary is the ability of a woman’s mind to weave fields of roses from thorns.” – J. Autherine
197. “She is a rose, Jest. Lovely on the eyes, yes, but such thorns are not to be ignored.” – Marissa Meyer
198. “Holding grudges is like growing a garden of thorns in your heart.” – Thandazo Perfect Khumalo
199. “You shouldn’t be afraid to hold on to something beautiful, even if there are thorns in your path. If you want something, sometimes you have to take risks. And when you do, you reap wonderful rewards.” – Jen Calonita
200. “La Vie En Rose. It is the French way of saying, ‘I am looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses.’” – Audrey Hepburn
Did You Learn More About Your Life by Understanding the Complexities of a Rose?
Roses are some of the most beautiful and colorful flowers around. It signifies many different things, like love, passion, purity, gratitude, and friendship. However, beneath the beauty and fragrance of the rose is its many thorns. And like our lives that can be filled with so much happiness, fun, good things, and blessings, we also all have our downs—those days when things get rough and we think we don’t have any hope left.
However, we learn from roses that that’s just a part of life. It signifies our strength and our ability to overcome adversities. So like roses, let’s all bloom in the time we’re ready—after we’ve faced all our difficulties and we’ve decided that we can do it and succeed in life.
What’s your favorite flower? Did you learn anything new from this collection? If so, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Make sure you comment them down below.