Dorothy Canfield Fisher Quotes - Page 2

There is no human relationship more intimate than that of nurse and patient, one in which the essentials of character are more rawly revealed.

Life takes hold of us with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought.

What's the use of inventing a better system as long as there just aren't enough folks with sense to go around?

Never since the dawn of human history, as far as I can find out, did people long settled in any region give a friendly welcome to newcomers. One of the disagreeable traits of our human nature seems to be to dislike on sight people who come later than the first settlers.

the encounter with death is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on.

Everyone bowed to that unwritten law of family life which ordains that, in the long run, everyone submerges his personal preference in the effort to conform to that of the member of the circle who complains most loudly and is most difficult to satisfy.

gossip ... is only fiction produced by non-professionals.

History is worth reading when it tells us truly what the attitude toward life was in the past.

The teachers of small children are paid more than they were, but still far less than the importance of their work deserves, and they are still regarded by the unenlightened majority as insignificant compared to those who impart information to older children and adolescents, a class of pupils which, in the nature of things, is vastly more able to protect its own individuality from the character of the teacher.

There's no healthy life possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when it's the only common ground.

I've always noticed that nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think it likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to deal with. A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the gainer.

You think religion is what's inside a little building filled with pretty lights from stained glass windows. But it's not. It's wings! Wings!

Vermont tradition is based on the idea that group life should leave each person as free as possible to arrange his own life. This freedom is the only climate in which (we feel) a human being may create his own happiness. ... Character itself lies deep and secret below the surface, unknown and unknowable by others. It is the mysterious core of life, which every man or woman has to cope with alone, to live with, to conquer and put in order, or to be defeated by.

A mom isn't an individual to lean on, but a person to generate leaning needless.

Almost anything is enough to keep alive someone who wishes nothing for himself but time to write music.

Taking somebody's sacrifices is like taking counterfeit money. You're only the poorer.

I'm as fixed in my opinion as the man who thought he was a hard-boiled egg.

don't let anything make you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world as women, and they're just as decent. Life isn't worth living unless you know that - and it's true.

Oh, yes, of course I like music, too. Very much. It's so pleasant of an evening, especially when made by your friends at home. I often say I like it better than cards. Though I must say I do like a good game of bridge.

Professional psychologists seem to think that they are the only people who make sense out of human actions. The rest of us know that everybody tries to do just this. What else is gossip?

Father sticks to it that anything that promises to pay too much can't help being risky.

the most elementary experience of life proves that the effects of compulsion last exactly as long as the physical or moral club can be applied.