Barren Quotes - Page 3

• Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.

  Henri Nouwen

  Pain, Spring, Flower

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Convergent Books

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• A college which does not confer the knowledge of the Spiritual Reality to the students who are engaged in the pursuit of various material studies, is as barren as the sky without the moon, or a heart without peace, or a nation without reference to law.

  Sai Baba

  Spiritual, Educational, Heart

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• Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things.

  J. C. Ryle

  Heart, Men, Sacred Things

  J.C RYLE, Rev Terry Kulakowski, Editor “HOLINESS;BEING PLAIN PAPERS ON ITS NATURE, HINDRANCES, DIFFICULTIES AND ROOTS”, Lulu.com

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• I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  And Love, Want, Eowyn

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings”, p.943, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We often become mentally and spiritually barren because we're so busy.

  Franklin Graham

  Busy

  Franklin Graham, Ross S. Rhoads “All for Jesus: A Devotional”, Harper Collins

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• Whatever your career may be, do not let yourselves become tainted by a deprecating and barren scepticism.

  Louis Pasteur

  Careers, May, Scepticism

  "The life of Pasteur", Volume II, by Vallery-Radot, translated by Mrs. R.L. Devonshire, (p. 228), 1911.

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• All I wanted, even when I hated you most, was some poor, barren, parched excuse to love you. But you only gave me riddles.

  Patricia A. McKillip

  Love You, Excuse, Poor

  "Riddle of Stars (The Quest of the Riddle-Master Trilogy)". Book by Patricia A. McKillip, October 1, 1979.

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• Without friendship and the openness and trust that go with it, skills are barren and knowledge may become an unguided missile.

  Frank H. T. Rhodes

  Friendship, Trust, Skills

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• Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?

  Arthur Golden

  Storm, Moments, Left Behind

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.13, Random House

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• What good to us is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, and if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer?

  Sigmund Freud

  Life, Long, Joy

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• The earth, though in comparison of heaven so small, nor glistering, may of solid good contain more plenty than the sun, that barren shines.

  John Milton

  Shining, Heaven, Earth

  John Milton (1847). “The Poetical Works, of John Milton: With a Memoir and Seven Embellishments”, p.171

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• There's a verse in the Bible: 'Those who are barren have more children than those who give birth.' There are young people all over the world who come to me for advice and love. I have all the children I can handle.

  Ginger Rogers

  Children, People, Giving

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• Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.

  Pliny the Elder

  Dog, Fall, Wine

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• He can make the dry parched ground of my soul to become a pool and my thirsty barren heart as springs of water. Yes he can make this habitation of dragons this heart which is so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations to be a place of bounty and fruitfulness unto Himself

  John Owen

  Spring, Heart, Dragons

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• What is that which can never die It is that faithful force that is born into us that one that is greater than us that calls new seed to the open and battered and barren places so that we can be resown. It is this force in its insistence in its loyalty to us in its love of us in its most often mysterious ways that is far greater far more majestic and far more ancient than any heretofore ever known.

  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

  Loyalty, Faithful, Way

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• The plants that produce visions can function- for those of us who have inherited the New World Order of barren materialism, cut off from our spiritual heritage by a spiteful culture that gives us nothing but ashes- as the talismans of recognition that awaken our minds to reality.

  Daniel Pinchbeck

  Spiritual, Cutting, Reality

  Daniel Pinchbeck (2002). “Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism”, p.125, Three Rivers Press

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• The Thames is a wretched river after the Mersey and the ships are not like Liverpool ships and the docks are barren of beauty ... it is a beastly hole after Liverpool; for Liverpool is the town of my heart and I would rather sail a mudflat there than command a clipper out of London

  John Masefield

  Heart, Rivers, London

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• Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness.

  Freya Stark

  Inspirational, Sex, Children

  Freya Stark (1964). “The Journey's Echo: Selections”

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• Feel oddly barren. My sickness is when words draw in their horns and the physical world refuses to be ordered, recreated, arranged and selected. I am a victim of it then, not a master.

  Sylvia Plath

  World, Sickness, Victim

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.516, Anchor

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• The power of growth, of improvement, the power to overcome all stagnation and break through every obstacle and transform a barren wasteland into a verdant field - that unstoppable power of hope resides right within your own heart. It wells up from the rich earth of your innermost being when you face the future without doubt or fear: "I can do more. I can grow. I can become a bigger and better human being."

  Daisaku Ikeda

  Heart, Break Through, Hopeful

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• A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality?

  Jack Valenti

  Quality, Doe, Use

  "A Plea For Keeping Alive the U.S. Film Industry's Competitive Energy". Jack Valenti's speech as MPAA Chairman and CEO before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 20, 1995.

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• Long live the weeds that overwhelm
  My narrow vegetable realm!
  The bitter rock, the barren soil
  That force the son of man to toil;
  All things unholy, marred by curse,
  The ugly of the universe.

  Theodore Roethke

  Weed, Son, Men

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.39, Anchor

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• When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death-- not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The earth was flat and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching in the distance. the last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing.

  Dan Wells

  Distance, Fall, Moon

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• Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring,
  With sudden passion languishing,
  Teaching barren moors to smile,
  Painting pictures mile on mile,
  Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths
  Whence a smokeless incense breathes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Daughter, Spring, Teaching

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1854). “Poems”, p.163

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• The word barren tells you everything you need to know...The word spinster tells you everything you need to know about our attitude of women who choose not to marry... Imagine if you saw George Clooney on the cover of a magazine every week with, is George broody? Is George going to adopt a baby? When is George going to have another kid? It would just seem weird. We'd seem demented, yet it's totally valid for women.

  Caitlin Moran

  Baby, Attitude, Kids

  "Not A Feminist? Caitlin Moran Asks, Why Not?". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. July 29, 2016.

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