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Not what we would, but what we must,
Makes up the sum of living;
Heaven is both more and less than just
In taking and in giving.

— Richard Henry Stoddard The Book of the East and Other Poems (1871)

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More quotes by Richard Henry Stoddard

We love in others what we lack ourselves,
And would be every thing but what we are.

Children are the keys of Paradise.
… They alone are good and wise,
Because their thoughts, their very lives, are prayer.

Songs of Summer (1856)

There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

Songs of Summer (1856)

Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of Years!

Silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.

Songs of Summer (1856)

All Richard Henry Stoddard quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Henry Stoddard (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.