Lucy Larcom Quotes
A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us.
When April steps aside for May, Like diamonds all the rain-drops glisten; Fresh violets open every day: To some new bird each hour we listen.
Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good.
Some of us must wait for the best human gifts until we come to heavenly places. Our natural desire for musical utterance is perhaps a prophecy that in a perfect world we shall all know how to sing.
I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.
The curse of covetousness is that it destroys manhood by substituting money for character.
The children with the streamlets sing, When April stops at last her weeping; And every happy growing thing Laughs like a babe just roused from sleeping.
There is something in the place where we were born that holds us always by the heart-strings.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We understand ourselves best and are best understood by others through the persons who came nearest to us in our earliest years.
June falls asleep upon her bier of flowers; In vain are dewdrops sprinkled o'er her, In vain would fond winds fan her back to life, Her hours are numbered on the floral dial.
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.
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 believe the best poetry of our times is growing too artistic; the study is too visible. If freedom and naturalness are lost out of poetry, everything worth having is lost.
That larger vision is certain to make clear the value in our own lives of service to others.
A friend is a beloved mystery; dearest always because he is not ourself, and has something in him which it is impossible for us to fathom. If it were not so, friendship would lose its chief zest.
Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality.
The whole world of thought lay unexplored before me, - a world of which I had already caught large and tempting glimpses.
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.
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.
