Quote

The distractions, the exhaustions, the savage noises, the demands of town life, are, for me, mortal enemies to thought, to sleep,and to study its extremes of squalor and of splendor do not stimulate, but sadden me certain phases of its society I profoundly value, but would sacrifice them to the heaven of country quiet, if I had to choose between.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

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Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
Age: 66 †
Born: 1844
Born: August 31
Died: 1911
Died: January 28
Author
Novelist
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Author of Ellen's idol
Mary Gray Phelps
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
E. S. Phelps
Country
Study
Enemies
Savages
Squalor
Would
Enemy
Noise
Phases
Noises
Life
Sleep
Towns
Distraction
Distractions
Heaven
Demand
Mortal
Stimulate
Society
Sacrifice
Mortals
Exhaustion
Values
Quiet
Demands
Splendor
Thought
Value
Extremes
Savage
Certain
Choose
Town
Profoundly
Sadden

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What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motion of a person, define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason.
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Death is not the worst sorrow.
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... to work, to work hard, to see work steadily, and see it whole, was the way to be reputable. I think I always respected a goodblacksmith more than a lady of leisure.
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Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists but if He had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material.
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Next to the love between man and his Creator, The love of one man and one woman, Is the loftiest and the most illusive ideal, That has been set before the world. A perfect marriage is like a pure heart: Those who have it are fit to see God.
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I believe in women and in their right to their own best possibilities in every department of life. I believe that the methods ofdress practiced among women are a marked hindrance to the realization of these possibilities, and should be scorned or persuaded out of society.
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I can remember no time when I did not understand that my mother must write books because people would have and read them but I cannot remember one hour in which her children needed her and did not find her.
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The great law of denial belongs to the powerful forces of life, whether the case be one of coolish baked beans, or an unrequited affection.
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It is impossible to forget the sense of dignity which marks the hour when one becomes a wage-earner... I felt that I had suddenly acquired value to myself, to my family, and to the world.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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What an immense power over life is the power of possessing distinct aims.
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A literary woman's best critic is her husband.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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It is not in our drawing-rooms that we should look to judge of the intrinsic worth of any style of dress. The street-car is a truer crucible of its inherent value.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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It is in the comprehension of the physically disabled, or disordered ... that we are behind our age.... sympathy as a fine art is backward in the growth of progress.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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It is not the straining for great things that is most effective it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better.
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The literary artist will ... portray what he knows, and little else. Imagination is built upon knowledge, and his dreams will rest upon his facts. He is worth to the world just about what he has learned from it, and no more.
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Superior music is purity itself it clears the air.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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To exist as an advertisement of her husband's income, or her father's generosity, has become a second nature to many a woman who must have undergone, one would say, some long and subtle process of degradation before she sunk [sic] so low, or grovelled so serenely.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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The woman's personal identity is a vast undiscovered country -- with which Society has yet to acquaint itself, and by which it is yet to be revolutionized.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward