Edwin Markham Quotes

The crest and crowning of all good, life's final star, is Brotherhood.

There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.

Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out. When the great oak is straining in the wind, The boughs drink in new beauty and the trunk Sends down a deeper root on the windward side. Only the soul that knows the mighty grief Can know the mighty rapture, Sorrows come To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Ah, great it is to believe the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream; But a greater thing is to fight life through, and at the end, 'The dream is true!'

He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In ! From the poem " Outwitted

For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike.

Choices are the hinges of destiny.

In vain we build the city if we do not first build the man.

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.

By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us.

We are all blind until we see That in the human plan Nothing is worth the making If it does not make the man. Why build these cities glorious If man unbuilded goes? We build the world in vain Unless the builders also grow.

It is better to rust out than wear out.

No soul can be forever banned, Eternally bereft, Whoever falls from God's right hand Is caught into his left.

To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.

Yes, take a little time to play And look at life the other way. God rested when the world was made: Rest now, old friend; be not afraid. But think not that your work is over, That you are now a foot-free rover, A rambler upon idle ways, Whittling away the golden days. For in the road climb to the goal There's no long furlough for a soul. There's no long pause: on every height Another summit swims in sight. The long road rises, scene by scene, With little restings in between.

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.

Sorrows come to stretch out places in the heart for joy.

There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in the liberty of all. There is no true security for the individual except as he finds it in the security for all.

At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky And flinging the cloud and the towers by, Is a place of central calm: So here in the roar of mortal things, I have a place where my spirit sings, In the hollow of God's Palm.

He fed his spirit with the bread of books

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, the emptiness of ages in his face, and on his back the burden of the world.

The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?

Earth Is Enough. We men of Earth have here the stuff Of Paradise - we have enough! We need no other stones to build The Temple of the Unfulfilled - No other ivory for the doors - No other marble for the floors - No other cedar for the beam And dome of man's immortal dream. Here on the paths of every-day - Here on the common human way Is all the stuff the gods would take To build a Heaven, to mold and make New Edens. Ours is the stuff sublime To build Eternity in time!

The sequoias belong to the silences of the milleniums. Many of them have seen a hundred human generations rise, give off their little clamors and perish. They seem indeed to be forms of immortality standing here amoing the transitory shapes of time.