The rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together.

The saying pairs natural imagery (rose/thorn) with emotional experience (gladness/sorrow) to argue that opposites are intertwined rather than separable. Pleasure often carries vulnerability, and suffering can be the price—or the teacher—of what is valuable. In Saadi’s moral universe, this linkage encourages realism and patience: one should not expect unalloyed happiness, nor despair as though pain were meaningless. The thought also implies ethical humility, since judging life by isolated moments misses the way joy and grief alternate and condition each other.