85 quotes
Meek — as the meek that shall inherit earth,
Pure — as the pure in heart that shall see God.
Thirty Years, Being Poems New and Old (1880)
Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man — man, made in the image of God.
John Halifax, Gentleman (1856)
There never was night that had no morn.
Thirty Years, Being Poems New and Old (1880)
Happiness is not an end — it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
The only way to make people good, is to make them happy.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love.
Thirty Years, Being Poems New and Old (1880)
Love, the master, goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers with song and shout,
Just as he please — just as he please.
Poems (1859)
It may often be noticed, the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odour of un-sanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world — nay, not in the universe.
John Halifax, Gentleman (1856)
"Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear," is a cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another?
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
We too should be about our father's business —
O Christ, hear us!
Thirty Years, Being Poems New and Old (1880)
It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time — and they feel that you are trying — to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us why.
Gossip, public, private, social — to fight against it either by word or pen seems, after all, like fighting with shadows.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Be loving, and you will never want for love; be humble, and you will never want for guiding.
To accept the inevitable, neither to struggle against it nor murmur at it, simply to bear it — this is the great lesson of life.
Sermons out of Church (1875)
In marriage there must be perfect unity;—one aim, one faith, one love, or the marriage is incomplete, unholy—a mere civil contract and no more.
John Halifax, Gentleman (1856)
We have not to construct human nature afresh, but to take it as we find it, and make the best of it.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)