Ella Wheeler Wilcox Quotes
All hope is prayer; who calls it hope no more, Sends prayer footsore forth over weary wastes, While he who calls it prayer, gives wings to hope.
And he who has dwelt with his heart alone, Hears all the music in friendship's tone. So better and better I comprehend How sorrow ever would be our friend.
Hide in your heart a bitter thought, Still it has power to blight; Think Love, although you speak it not It gives the world more light.
How will it be when one of us alone Goes on that strange last journey of the soul? That certain search for an uncertain goal, That voyage on which no comradeship is known?
Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait, And die at last with unappeased desire, Than live to be the jest of such a fate, For that is my conception of hell-fire.
It is time that outraged public sentiment cry out in detestation of the outrages committed in the name of religion.
But though that place I never gain, Herein lies comfort for my pain: I will be worthy of it.
Time loves a new lay; and the dirge he is playing Will change for you soon to a livelier strain.
There is no thing we cannot overcome Say not thy evil instinct is inherited, Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn, And calls down punishment that is not merited.
There was hell in her eyes! She was worn and jaded Her soul is at war with the life she has led. As I looked on that face so strangely faded I wonder God did not strike me dead.
I think I never passed so sad an hour, Dear friend, as that one at the church to-night. The edifice from basement to the tower Was one resplendent blaze of coloured light.
Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving Thy strong regard for me, Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving; Let thy faith speak for thee.
Give her not greatness. For great souls must stand Alone and lonely in this little world: Cleft rocks that show the great Creator's hand, Thither by earthquakes hurled.
Thank Fate for foes! I hold mine dear As valued friends. He cannot know The zest of life who runneth here His earthly race without a foe.
While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face, Love, robed like sorrow, led me by the hand And taught my doubting heart to understand That which has puzzled all the human race.
One bitter time of mourning, I remember, When day, and night, my sad heart did complain, My life, I said, was one cold, bleak December, And all its pleasures, were but whited pain.
Even so We find the sea of sorrow. Black as night The sullen surface meets our frightened gaze, As down we sink to darkness and despair.
Let us clear a little space, And make Love a burial-place. He is dead, dear, as you see, And he wearies you and me.
We ought to make the moments notes Of happy glad Thanksgiving; The hours and days, a silent praise Of music we are living.
Ah, lady! it is hardly what you thought it, This life of luxury and social power; You gave yourself as principal, and bought it, But God extracts the interest hour by hour.
I was as pure as the morning When I first looked on your face; I knew I never could reach you In your high, exalted place.
Feast, and your halls are crowded Fast, and the world goes by Succeed and give, and it helps you live But no man can help you die
The sin and the shame and the sorrow, The crime and the want and the woe That are born there in your workshop, No hand can paint, you know.
God made poor woman with no heart, But gave her skill, and tact, and art, And so she lives, and plays her part. We must not blame, but pity her.
I knew it the first of the summer, I knew it the same at the end, That you and your love were plighted, But couldn't you be my friend?
I like the roar of cities. In the mart, Where busy toilers strive for place and gain, I seem to read humanity's great heart, And share its hopes, its pleasures, and its pain.
Just a little every day That's the way Children learn to read and write Bit by bit and mite by mite.
This world is a vaporous jest at best, Tossed off by the gods in laughter, And a cruel attempt at wit were it, If nothing better came after.
Life is a Shylock; always it demands The fullest userer's interest for each pleasure. Gifts are not freely scattered by its hands; We make returns for every borrowed treasure.
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other, That passionate Love is Pain's own mother.
Love is the crown that glorifies; the curse That brands and burdens; it is life and death. It is the great law of the universe; And nothing can exist without its breath.
Our lives are songs; God write the words And we set them to music at pleasure; And the song grows glad, or sweet or sad, As we choose to fashion the measure.
Talk faith. The world is better off without, Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.
Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin, As sweet as clover-honey in its cell; Love is the password whereby souls get in To Heaven--the gate that leads, sometimes, to Hell.
I'm no reformer; for I see more lightThan darkness in the world; mine eyes are quickTo catch the first dim radiance of the dawn,And slow to note the cloud that threatens storm.
Body and mind, and spirit, all combineTo make the Creature, human and divine.Of this great trinity no part deny.Affirm, affirm, the Great Eternal I.
Love is the only thing that pays for birth, Or makes death welcome. Oh, dear God above This beautiful but sad, perplexing earth, Pity the hearts that know--or know not--Love!
I hold it true that thoughts are things Endowed with bodies, breath, and wings, And that we send them forth to fill The world with good results--or ill.
It is a common fate -- a woman's lot -- To waste on one the riches of her soul, Who takes the wealth she gives him, but cannot Repay the interest, and much less the whole.
The world needs divine power in every human being the recognition of which is the secret to all success and happiness.
The loves of men but vary in degrees-- They find no new expression for the flame.
This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendor Fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep.
