“It’s not a delicate rose surrounded by thorns,” ” it’s a beautiful plant that has thorns to protect itself.” Those two statements aren’t contradictory, I guess you mean either that a rose isn’t delicate and/or it’s not surrounded by thorns… and you just decided to be rather wordy and confusing.
“Removing the thorns” “and leaving only the thorns is wrong”. That sounds self contradictory. “The rose and the thorns are one.” That’s “true” if you call a rose thorns. But recall the counsel of William Shakespeare: “A rose by any other name is still a rose.”