Ella Wheeler Wilcox Quotes - Page 7

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,And that's the burden of a year.

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.

And so for me there is no sting of death, And so the grave has lost its victory. It is but crossing-with abated breath And white, set face-a little strip of sea To find the loved ones waiting on the shore, More beautiful, more precious than before.

Lean on thyself until thy strength is tried; Then ask God's help; it will not be denied. Use thine own sight to see the way to go; When darkness falls ask God the path to show. Think for thyself and reason out thy plan; God has His work and thou hast thine. Exert thy will and use for self-control; God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul. All thine immortal powers bring into play; Think, act, strive, reason, and look up and pray.

Let no one pray that they know not sorrow, Let no soul ask to be free from pain, For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow, And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain. Through want of a thing does its worth redouble, Through hunger's pangs does the feast content, And only the heart that has harboured trouble Can fully rejoice when joy is sent. Let no one shrink from the bitter tonics Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife, For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonics Are found in the minor strains of life.

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.

But now I know that there is no killing A thing like Love, for it laughs at Death. There is no hushing, there is no stilling That which is part of your life and breath. You may bury it deep, and leave behind you The land, the people that knew your slain; It will push the sods from its grave, and find you On wastes of water or desert plain.

The loves of men but vary in degrees-- They find no new expression for the flame.

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!

Talk faith. The world is better off without, Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.

Not to the curious or impatient soulThat in the start, demands the end be shown,And at each step, stops waiting for a sign;But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,Shall the great miracles of God be knownAnd life revealed, immortal and divine.

It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.

The world needs divine power in every human being the recognition of which is the secret to all success and happiness.

All perfect things are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, The matchless tinting on the royal rose Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked. Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows, These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, Since they leave nothing better to expect.

If fallacies come knocking at my door,I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score,Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt,And run the risk of barring one Truth out.And if pretension for a time deceive,And prove me one too ready to believe,Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.

Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.The winding road slants downward many a time;Yet each descent is higher than the last.

God, what a world, if men in street and mart felt that same kinship of the human heart which makes them, in the face of fire and flood, rise to the meaning of true brotherhood.

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.

The passion you forbade my lips to utter Will not be silenced. You must hear it in The sullen thunders when they roll and mutter: And when the tempest nears, with wail and din, I know your calm forgetfulness is broken, And to your heart you whisper, "He has spoken."

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.

Be hald, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all. There are to decline your nectared wine, But all you must drink life's gall.

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.

Then I turned to him commanding That he go the way he came, whence he came. But he answered me in sorrow, "May the Past not seek to borrow From the Present without blame - Just one memory from its store, Ere it goes to come no more, Back the pathway that it came, whence it came?"

Oh! not for the great departed, Who formed our country's laws, And not for the bravest-hearted, Who died in freedom's cause, And not for some living hero To whom all bend the knee, My muse would raise her song of praise - But for the man to be.

Time is the best avenger.