Lydia M. Child Quotes

Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.

An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves.

Prejudices of all kinds have their strongest holds in the minds of the vulgar and the ignorant.

Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have.

So easy it is to see the errors of past ages, so difficult to acknowledge our own!

a great mind can attend to little things, but a little mind cannot attend to great things.

You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.

The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement. Nature always produces individuals; She never produces classes.

Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.

Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.

It is my mission to help in the breaking down of classes, and to make all men feel as if they were brethren of the same family, sharing the same rights, the same capabilities, and the same responsibilities. While my hand can hold a pen, I will use it to this end; and while my brain can earn a dollar, I will devote it to this end.

Love is the divine quality that everywhere produces and restores life. To each and every one of us, it gives the power of working miracles if we will.

I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me.

They [slaves] have stabbed themselves for freedom-jumped into the waves for freedom-starved for freedom-fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot-and their tyrants have been their historians!

The rarest attainment is to grow old happily and gracefully.

It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.

The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word 'love'. It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.

Avoid the necessity of a physician, if you can, by careful attention to your diet. Eat what best agrees with your system, and resolutely abstain from what hurts you, however well you may like it. A few days' abstinence, and cold water for a beverage, has driven off many an approaching disease.

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.

The United States is a warning rather than an example to the world.

Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.

Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.

A human heart can never grow old if it takes a lively interest in the pairing of birds, the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of autumn leaves.

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.

To everything there is a bright side and a dark side; and I hold it to be unwise, unphilosophic, unkind to others, and unhealthy for one's own soul, to form the habit of looking on the dark side. Cheerfulness is to the spiritual atmosphere what sunshine is to the earthly landscape. I am resolved to cherish cheerfulness with might and main.