To different minds, poetry may present different phases. To me, the reverent faith of the people I lived among, and their faithful everyday living, was poetry; blossoms and trees and blue shies were poetry. God himself was poetry.
The curse of covetousness is that it destroys manhood by substituting money for character.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree, What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
Many kinds of fruit grow upon the tree of life, but none so sweet as friendship; as with the orange tree its blossoms and fruit appear at the same time, full of refreshment for sense and for soul.
We might all place ourselves in one of two ranks the women who do something, and the women who do nothing; the first being of course the only creditable place to occupy.
I don’t own an inch of land, but all I see is mine.
The whole world of thought lay unexplored before me, – a world of which I had already caught large and tempting glimpses...
Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!
To her bier Comes the year Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do, But, to guide her way to it, All the trees have torches lit; Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through...
A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us.
A man may make a misanthrope of himself, but he is never one by nature.
No one can feel more gratefully the charm of noble scenery, or the refreshment of escape into the unspoiled solitudes of nature, than the laborer at some close in-door employment.
Labor, in itself, is neither elevating or otherwise. It is the laborer’s privilege to ennoble his work by the aim with which he undertakes it, and by the enthusiasm and faithfulness he puts into it.
It is one of the most beautiful facts in this human existence of ours, that we remember the earliest and freshest part of it most vividly. Doubtless it was meant that our childhood should live on in us forever.
God be thanked for the thinkers of good and noble thoughts! It wakes up all the best in ourselves, to come into close contact with others greater and better in every way than we are.
Girls especially are fond of exchanging confidences with those whom they think they can trust; it is one of the most charming traits of a simple, earnest-hearted girlhood, and they are the happiest women who never lose it entirely.
Few parents are aware of the difficulties that beset the minds of the little philosophers and theologians who sit upon their knees or play at their feet; and many a parent could not comprehend the disturbance, if he were aware of it.
Whatever science and philosophy may do for mankind, the world can never outgrow its need of the simplicity that is in Christ.
Religion is life inspired by Heavenly Love; and life is something fresh and cheerful and vigorous.
I am willing to make any part of my life public, if it will help others.
It is the greatest of all mistakes to begin life with the expectation that it is going to be easy, or with the wish to have it so.