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Daily Inspiration Quote by Grantland Rice

"There's no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; Only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers"

About this Quote

Rice frames kindness as an abundant natural resource and then indicts us for acting like it is scarce. The line turns on a neat reversal: the world isn’t failing us; our perception is. “No dearth of kindness” reads like the sober voice of a columnist who’s seen enough cynicism to know it sells, but also enough decency to know it’s real. The sting arrives in the second clause, where “blindness” isn’t innocence but a chosen misreading of reality, the way people default to suspicion, grievance, or self-protective hardness.

The image of “gather[ing] thorns for flowers” does double work. It suggests we actively collect pain - not merely step on it. That verb, “gather,” implies preference, habit, even identity-making. We curate slights, hoard disappointments, build a bouquet out of injuries because it fits the story we’re already telling: that the world is harsh, that people are unreliable, that kindness is naive. Rice’s metaphor also nods to journalism’s daily dilemma: attention gravitates toward the prickly and alarming. Thorns are click-worthy. Flowers require noticing.

Context matters. Writing in the early 20th century, with war, economic churn, and mass media accelerating public mood swings, Rice’s optimism isn’t sentimental; it’s corrective. The quote functions like a moral eye exam. It asks readers to consider how much of their bleakness is evidence-based and how much is self-inflicted misfocus. Kindness is present, Rice suggests, but it doesn’t announce itself. It has to be looked for - and, crucially, believed in enough to be recognized.

Quote Details

TopicKindness
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Rice, Grantland. (2026, January 15). There's no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; Only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/theres-no-dearth-of-kindness-in-this-world-of-169411/

Chicago Style
Rice, Grantland. "There's no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; Only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/theres-no-dearth-of-kindness-in-this-world-of-169411/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"There's no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; Only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/theres-no-dearth-of-kindness-in-this-world-of-169411/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Grantland Rice (November 1, 1880 - July 13, 1954) was a Journalist from USA.

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