The Thorn In The Flesh Quotes

That little, twitching, momentary clasp of acknowledgment that she gave him in her satisfaction, roused his pride unconquerable. They loved each other, and all was whole. She loved him, he had taken her, she was given to him. It was right. He was given to her, and they were one, complete. ~ D.H. Lawrence

She was uneasy, perturbed to her last fibre. She wanted to remain clear, with no touch on her. A wild instinct made her shrink away from any hands which might be laid on her. ~ D.H. Lawrence

The shame, the roused feeling of exposure acted on his brain, made him heavy, unutterably heavy. ~ D.H. Lawrence

(...) he was beginning to be himself. And now he wanted madly to be free to go on. A home, his work, and absolute freedom to move and to be, in her, with her, this was his passionate desire. He thought in a kind of ecstasy, living an hour of painful intensity. ~ D.H. Lawrence

I'm T. Thorne Rose and I did it hard
Til I wound up dyin in the Zen schoolyard
Can't you see it's more important here to use your brain
Than to poison up your body killin other people's pain
Yes, it's Other People's Pain,
That's a trick you might have missed
So let your Sister Rosie hip you to this little twist
The news, the Blues, the pain, the strain,
the lies we've heard since birth
Are only true if we, ourselves, think that's what life is worth
But when you realize that we are all Queens and Kings
You'll drop the death, take a deep breath,
and hear life when it sings
Don't get lost and washed away like a teardrop in the rain
No abuse of any kind has ever come to any gain
Sister T. Thorn Rose from the group Goldensealed ~ Doug "Ten" Rose

Friend, my enemy, I call you out. You, you, you there with a bad thorn in your side. You there, my friend, with a winning air. Who pawned the lie on me when he looked brassly at my shyest secret. With my whole heart under your hammer. That though I loved him for his faults as much as for his good. My friend were an enemy upon stilts with his head in a cunning cloud. -Dylan Thomas ~ Dylan Thomas

The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph. ~ Michael Grant

They were all day among the dunes and in the evening coming down from the last low sandhills to the plain below among catclaw and crucifixion thorn they were a parched and haggard lot man and beast. Harpie eagles flew up screaming from a dead mule and wheeled off westward into the sun as they led the horses out onto the plain. ~ Cormac McCarthy

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

What is clear is that Scripture requires both head and heart, and you need to see it not just as a text but as the very words of God. This will encourage you to pay close attention to the very words he uses, but it will also compel you to feast on those words as light-shedding, wisdom-dispensing, and life-giving counsel from on high.

For all your longing for God to speak, to make his will plain and his plan clear, you should be daily immersed in God's Word. This is his voice, his will, and his plan made known to you. Consider these words, "Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes." God's face shines on you when you are learning - experientially - his Word. ~ Joe Thorn

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice - and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree. ~ Joseph Mary Plunkett

My last night as Isabella Swan. Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen. Though the whole marriage ordeal was a thorn in my side, I had to admit that I liked the sound of that.
- bella swan ~ Stephenie Meyer

It is better to be a thorn in the side of a friend than an echo. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I see time away hasn't made you any more charming. (Fang)
Oh, I can be charming. I just choose not to. People start to think you like them, then when you stab them in the back, they take it so personally. Really pisses me off. (Thorn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Joe Thorn writes about "suffering well," showing us the foundations of resolute peace: God does not promise to rid your life of affliction and difficulty. He does, however, offer to give you the grace needed to suffer well, and through grace to discover the riches and beauty of the gospel. It isn't wrong to ask God to relieve you of your pain, but it is more important that in the midst of the pain you rely on the promise of God to work such experiences for his glory and your good - to use these times as a means of perfecting your faith, strengthening your spirit, and transforming your life in such a way that you are becoming more like Jesus.1 ~ Matt Chandler

Does it need to be so tight?" Nathaniel objected as Silas retied the cravat in a complicated series of knots, his gloved fingers moving with nimble certainty over the fabric.
"I'm afraid so, if you wish to remain fashionable," Silas replied. "And we don't want a repeat of the incident with Lady Gwendolyn."
Nathaniel scoffed. "How was I supposed to know tying it that way meant that I intended to proposition her? I have better things to do then learn secret signals with handkerchiefs and neckcloths."
"Had you listened to me, I would have told you, and spared you from getting champagne thrown in your face---though I heard several people say afterward that that was their favorite part of the dinner. ~ Margaret Rogerson

The Thorn of Istra, her mind supplied. That's the Thorn of Istra.
Lots. He's killed lots and lots and lots. ~ Holly Black

You experience two kinds of guilt. One is the reality of your culpability before God. You have transgressed his law - you are guilty. The other is the sense of your corruption. You feel guilty. The first kind of guilt is true of you because everyone is a sinner. But not everyone knows the second kind. Until a person knows his guilt, he cannot know pardon. Until you feel the bondage of your guilt, you cannot find the freedom of forgiveness. In this sense, guilt is not your enemy. ~ Joe Thorn

I am like some wounded animal in a darkened lair, nursing the thorn in my paw, unable to find anyone to take it out. ~ Kristin Hannah

While the law of God is something we intuitively, if partially, know because we are made in his image, in our sinful condition we repress that knowledge and fight against our consciences when they alert us to our own wrongdoing. We need his law more than we need a vague admonition to "love" and "worship. ~ Joe Thorn

Her returned in the evening, drier, sharper, a man with a closer kinship with a thorn bush. ~ Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Modern spiritual consciousness is predicated upon the fact that God is gone, and spiritual experience, for many of us, amounts mostly to an essential, deeply felt and necessary but ultimately inchoate and transitory feeling of oneness or unity with existence. It is mystical and valuable, but distant. Christ, though, is a thorn in the brain. ~ Christian Wiman

Woe to me if I should prove myself but a halfhearted soldier in the service of my thorn-crowned Captain. ~ Fidelis Of Sigmaringen

The deepness and consistency of your repenting will have a direct impact on the liveliness of your faith and the brightness of your confidence. This is not because you repent so well, but because in repenting you know the darkness and trouble of your own sin, and the great work of grace in Jesus that overcomes it all. ~ Joe Thorn

When we say "transformation," it means that nothing of the old has remained. Something totally new has flowered within you. Now you look at a rose plant that is full of thorns. Springtime came and rose flowers burst out - it is a transformation. The thorns are still there - there are more thorns than flowers - but we do not call it a thorn plant. We call it a rose plant because of that single rose. Everyone's attention goes more towards that single rose than a hundred thorns that are on the plant, isn't it? So all the thorns in you, maybe you cannot remove them right now, but if one rose flower blossoms, everyone is willing to overlook those things. ~ Jaggi Vasudev

The deepwood is vanished in these islands
much, indeed, had vanished before history began
but we are still haunted by the idea of it. The deepwood flourishes in our architecture, art and above all in our literature. Unnumbered quests and voyages have taken place through and over the deepwood, and fairy tales and dream-plays have been staged in its glades and copses. Woods have been a place of inbetweenness, somewhere one might slip from one world to another, or one time to a former: in Kipling's story 'Puck of Pook's Hill,' it is by right of 'Oak and Ash and Thorn' that the children are granted their ability to voyage back into English history. ~ Robert Macfarlane

She stiffened and gasped, and the touch was immediately withdrawn.
"Did I hurt you?"
Her lashes lifted. "No," she said in wonder. "In fact, I didn't feel any pain." She strained to look between them. "Is there blood? Perhaps I should-"
"No. Win..." There was a near-comical expression of dismay on his face. "What I just did isn't going to cause pain or blood." A brief pause. "When I do it with my cock, however, it's probably going to hurt like hell."
"Oh." She pondered that for a moment. "Is that the word men use for their private parts?"
"One of the words gadjos use."
"What do Romas say?"
"They call it a kori."
"What does that mean?"
"'Thorn.'"
Win slid a bashful glance at the heavy protrusion straining behind his trousers. "Rather too substantial for a thorn. I should have thought they would use a more fitting word. But I suppose-" She inhaled sharply as his hand moved downward. "I suppose if one wants roses, one must-" his finger had slipped inside her again- "bear the occasional thorn."
"Very philosophical. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Men. I saw in Rome a statue of a boy extracting a thorn from his foot; I went my way, and returned in a year's time, and ;here sat the selfsame boy, extracting the intruder still, Is this to be our model? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

And you joined the Water Dogs because of her"
" Yes. I thought it would make her stop hunting me"
"Did it?"
"No. "I turned so I could look at him. "You did"
"Me?"
"I was too busy worrying about what a thorn in my side you were to obsess about it anymore. One nightmare at a time please. ~ Kat Ross

Instead of suffering fruitlessly through your trials, be sure to keep your eyes fixed on your heavenly Father who has good purposes in all you experience. Check yourself for sin that has not been dealt with. Lean on the grace and goodness of God, and you will find relief. ~ Joe Thorn

The forest reveals what was in the seed.
The hen reveals what was in the egg.
The storm reveals what was in the clouds.
The light reveals what was in the star.

The perfume reveals what was in the flower.
The honey reveals what was in the bee.
The fruit reveals what was in the tree.
The rose reveals what was in the thorn.

The web reveals what was in the spider.
The butterfly reveals what was in the caterpillar.
The venom reveals what was in the serpent.
The pearl reveals what was in the oyster.

The diamond reveals what was in the rock.
The flame reveals what was in the spark.
The nest reveals what was in the bird.
The roar reveals what was in the lion.

The leaf reveals what was in the plant.
The fire reveals what was in the wood.
The droplet reveals what was in the ocean.
The rainbow reveals what was in the storm.

The ocean reveals what was in the shark.
The desert reveals what was in the camel.
The sky reveals what was in the eagle.
The jungle reveals what was in the elephant.

The team reveals what was in the coach.
The flock reveals what was in the shepherd.
The crew reveals what was in the captain.
The army reveals what was in the general.

The tower reveals what was in the architect.
The sculpture reveals what was in the sculptor.
The painting reveals what was in the painter.
The ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Christ taught that there was a difference between divine love and human love. Human love depends upon the one who is loved. If you meet my needs, if I find you attractive, and if our personalities are compatible, I will love you. Understandingly, human love changes...
In contrast, divine love depends upon the lover; divine love says I can go on loving you even if you have stopped loving me. Divine love is based on a decision that continues even if the one who is loved changes. Divine love says, "You cannot make me stop loving you."
In this context, read Christ's words: "But i say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" (Luke 6:27-28). This kind of love even loves enemies. And if we want to know whether such tough love will really be worth the cost, Christ continues, "But love your enemies, and do good , and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil" (v.35). Your reward will be great!
So often we pray, "O God, make me godly." We want to be like God. Then God sends a difficult person into our life - perhaps a quarrelsome coworker - and we complain, insisting that He remove the "thorn" from us. But these trials are given to is that we might become "godly".
You have it from Christ Himself. "Your reward shall be great!"
- from "Your Eternal Reward" by Erwin Lutzer ~ Erwin Lutzer

I was not meant to live anywhere except in Paradise.
Such, simply, was my genetic inadaptation.
Here on earth every prick of a rose-thorn changed into a wound. When the sun hid behind a cloud, I grieved.
I pretended to work like others from morning to evening, but I was absent, dedicated to invisible countries. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

In our relationship, what is it that you like the most?' Sita had asked Rama one day.
'Protecting you like an eyelid protects the eye. If a thorn pierces your foot, I must pluck it out. I must, myself, kill the wild animals that approach you. The thought that I'm protecting you gives me greater pride and pleasure than sovereignty over Ayodhya,' Rama had said.
'I can protect myself. I can match you in archery,' Sita had said, laughing. Rama's face had fallen.
'As long as I am alive, you will never have to protect yourself. Such a situation must never arise. You must look towards me for protection. You must turn to my strong arms for protection. If you take care of yourself, what am I for? Promise me that you will never do that.'
Sita had placed her hand in Rama's.
Abduction. Waiting in Ashoka Vanam - Sita had no alternative. ~ Volga

I can arrange words on a page but I can't seem to organize books on a shelf. Over the years, My Secret has shelved thousands and thousands, held each one in his hands. He thinks they might have seeped into him, through his skin, as much as the books he's read. At night and on his days off we spend hours talking about writing. He reads three or four books at a time. When he's not working at the bookstore he goes to other bookstores around the city and browses until closing time. Holding more volumes in his hands, filling himself up with words. ~ Francesca Lia Block

That strange premature genius Chatterton has couched in one line the quintessence of what Voltaire has said in many pages: Reason, a thorn in Revelation's side. ~ Horace Walpole

In response to the challenge of strangers, sport arose as a sublimated representation of a community's armed might as well as its pride of place and clan. ~ John Thorn