90+ Best Rose Quotes and Messages (2024)

A work of art, whether it’s the Mona Lisa or a sonnet, will always be beautiful in its own right. The same can be said of roses, which are often compared to works of art. They are beautiful, elegant, and captivating in the way that only nature’s art can be. This comprehensive collection of rose quotes and messages about the world’s most beloved flower capture the beauty, the originality, and the singularity of roses.

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90+ of the Best Quotes and Messages About Roses

Famous Quotes About Roses

The beauty of roses is such that even the most famous poets and playwrights among us couldn’t quite capture their allure. But here’s the thing about quotes inspired by such a thing of beauty: In trying to create a facsimile, they inspire us to reach for the real thing.

“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
“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
“A rose dreams of enjoying the company of bees, but none appears. The sun asks: Aren’t you tired of waiting? Yes, but if I close my petals, I will wither and die.” – Paulo Coelho
“It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes her so important.” – Antoine De Saint Exupéry
“My life is part humor, part roses, part thorns.” – Bret Michaels.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare
“There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Love is a rose, but you’d better not pick 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.” – Linda Ronstadt
“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.” – George Eliot
“You, of course, are a rose– But were always a rose.” – Robert Frost
“A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.” – Leo Buscaglia

Inspirational Rose Quotes and Messages

There’s something inspiring about watching roses in the rain. Sleet, hail, and rain pummel them, and yet, instead of closing off their beauty, they open their petals wider and let their fragrance waft through the rains. The fragrant beauty of these quotes takes their inspiration from the roses that survive the rains of life.

“As delicate as flower, as tender as rose petals, choosing to be tender and kind in a harsh environment is not weakness, it’s courage.” ― Luffina Lourduraj
“Just like the rose holds her beauty among the thorns- we can gather our strength from the most unlikely places.” ― Christine Evangelou
“When life throws thorns, hunt for roses.” – Anonymous
“Every rose that is sweet-scented within, that rose is telling of the secrets of the Universal.” – Rumi
“Life is full of paradoxes, as roses are of thorn.” – Fernando Pessoa
“The rose is fairest when it is budding new, and hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.” – Sir Walter Scott
“Love and a red rose can’t be hid.” – Thomas Holcroft
“A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.” – William Carlos Williams
“A profusion of pink roses being ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.” – William Carlos Williams

Romantic Rose Quotes and Messages

Beautiful and Poignant Quotes on Roses

The rich scents of summer and of rose gardens waft through our windows and into our consciousness. They evoke remembrances of times past and inspire promises of a more fragrantly beautiful future. These quotes evoke the poignance of roses in spring and remind us to be, as Tupac says, the rose that grows through the crack in the concrete.

“A rose does not answer its enemies with words, but with beauty.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
“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
“The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculpted flower.” – William C Bryant
“They are not long, the days of wine and roses.” ― Ernest Dowson, Collected Poems
“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
“Take time to smell the roses. Appreciating the little things in life really can make all the difference.” – Andy Puddicombe
“The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.” – George William Curtis
“You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, but the scent of the roses will hang round it still.” – Thomas Moore
“As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.” – Ben Hogan
“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

Short and Concise Roses Quotes and Messages

The beauty of roses is like nature’s shorthand. All of the love of the universe is contained in a single petal of this exquisite flower. These quotes embrace this idea: that beauty doesn’t need to be big to be memorable.

“A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom.” – Chinese Proverb
“The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses.” – Ovid
“World without poetry is like a lover without a rose.” ― Shiny
“One rose is enough for the dawn.” – Edmond Jabes
“A rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.” – Rumi
“Roses fall but the thorns remain.” Dutch proverb
“A relationship is like a rose. How long it lasts, no one knows.” – Rob Cella
“Beauty without virtue is like a rose without scent.” – Anonymous
“A rose is still a rose, even if it has only one petal left.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
“Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.” – Edmund Spenser

Cute, Humorous, and Charming Roses Quotes and Messages

Doesn’t it always just seem like when you’re ready to stop and smell the roses, there’s always a bee on the rose you want to smell? These quotes and messages about roses remind us that even nature’s most perfect flower becomes slightly imperfect when the conditions are right.

“In a world full of roses, stand out like a dandelion in the middle of a green, plush lawn!” ― June Stoyer
“The world is a rose; smell it and pass it to your friends.” – Persian Proverb
“Roses are red, violets are blue, I’ll never love someone the way I love you.” – Anonymous
“There may be many flowers in one’s life…but only one rose.” – Anonymous
“The mind is a red rose with thorns… Don’t get too close.” ― Bert McCoy
“Roses are red, violets are blue, but I wouldn’t know since I don’t get them from you.” – Anonymous
“True love is like little roses, sweet, fragrant in small doses.” – Ana Claudia Antunes
“Is a rose still a rose without bees?” – Anonymous
“Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.” – Katharine Lee Bates
“Life is like a rose garden — watch for the thorns and keep the pest dust handy” – Anonymous
“You’d get a lot more work done if you didn’t stop and smell the roses so often.” – Anonymous
“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

Deep and Meaningful Rose Quotes and Messages

The beauty of roses lies not only in their appearance but also in their story. Roses have long been associated with love because they symbolize admiration and devotion. Whether it be a single bloom or an entire bouquet, this hand-picked selection of quotes offers rose lovers something truly special.

“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
“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” – James M. Barrie
“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
“A rose speaks of love silently in a language known only to the heart.” – Anonymous
“A pink rose among a thousand white daisies stand out; be likewise.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.” – Kahlil Gibran
“Discipline trains you to put up with disappointments, every rose has a thorn.” – Sai Baba
“Real beauty is in the fragility of your petals. A rose that never wilts isn’t a rose at all.” – Crystal Woods
“The Rose is without an explanation; She blooms, because She blooms.” – Angelus Silesius
“Where, you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.” – Frances Hodgson Burnett
“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
“How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When I’m gone and you have no one to give you flowers, I hope I will always be remembered in the roses I have planted in you.” – Anonymous

Quirky Rose Quotes

While brides may dream of a walkway made of the heads of roses, those whose sense of humor falls on the quirkier side don’t think of this as romantic at all. Rather, their thoughts turn to baser things, like painting the roses red and off with her head and all of the other things that little Alice might dread. These quotes turn the idea of the roses as a symbol of romance on its head, giving you a quirkier look at the Red Queen’s favorite flower!

“Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.” – Richard Brinsley Sheridan
“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
“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.” – Alphonse Karr
“If you really screw up, send roses.” – Letitia Baldrige
“Smell the roses. Smell the coffee. Whatever it is that makes you happy.” – Rita Moreno
“I don’t know whether nice people tend to grow roses or growing roses makes people nice.” – Roland A. Browne
“A pink rose among a thousand white daisies stand out; be likewise.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
“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

Double-Edged Roses Quotes

Lady Macbeth said: All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. And so, it is with these quotes. They remind us that while roses are a thing of beauty, their beauty comes with a price: thorns, which often last long after the rose drops her petals.

“Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has its dawn.” – Poison, the band
“Truths and roses have thorns about them.” – Henry David Thoreau
“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
“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 that are blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie
“She who loves roses must be patient and not cry out when she is pierced by thorns.” – Olga Broumas
“True friendship is like a rose, we don’t realize its beauty until it fades.” – Anonymous
“But he who dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose.” ― Anne Brontë
“Love is sweeter than any rose. Love pricks you far deeper than any thorn.” – Anonymous
“Thorns and roses grow on the same tree.” – Turkish Proverb
“A rose, isn’t quite as beautiful as it once was, when after its thorn pricks you.” – Anthony Liccione
“Forgiveness is the scent that the rose leaves on the heel that crushes it.” – Anonymous
“Those who don’t pick roses in summer won’t pick them in winter either.” – German Proverb
“I’d rather let you cover all my roads with thorns than with dead roses.” – Nema Al-Araby
“The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.” – Richter

The Best Rose Quotes and Messages – Final Thoughts

There is nothing like the feeling of walking through the untouched fields of spring, fresh air all around you, and roses in bloom as far as the eye can see. These quotes and messages about roses encourage you to muse over nature’s beauty and her gifts and her artistry.

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For more, see our in-depth guide to the best types of native North American roses.

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