Roses, Thomas Browne

When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.

- Thomas Browne, in Vulgar Errors, as reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roses

Beauty, Anne Brontë

But he who dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.

― Anne Brontë