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A man may make a misanthrope of himself, but he is never one by nature.

Lucy Larcom

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Lucy Larcom
Age: 69 †
Born: 1824
Born: March 5
Died: 1893
Died: April 17
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Beverly
Massachusetts
Make
Never
Men
Misanthrope
Nature
May

More quotes by Lucy Larcom

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Whatever science and philosophy may do for mankind, the world can never outgrow its need of the simplicity that is in Christ.
Lucy Larcom
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Tailor's work--the finishing of men's outside garments--was the trade learned most frequently by women in [the 1820s and 1830s],and one or more of my older sisters worked at it I think it must have been at home, for I somehow or somewhere got the idea, while I was a small child, that the chief end of woman was to make clothing for mankind.
Lucy Larcom
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The soul, cramped among the petty vexations of Earth, needs to keep its windows constantly open to the invigorating air of large and free ideas: and what thought is so grand as that of an ever-present God, in whom all that is vital in humanity breathes and grows?
Lucy Larcom
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I remember how beautiful the Merrimac looked to me in childhood, the first true river I ever knew it opened upon my sight and wound its way through my heart like a dream realized its harebells, its rocks, and its rapids, are far more fixed in my memory than anything about the sea.
Lucy Larcom
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A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us.
Lucy Larcom
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To different minds, poetry may present different phases. To me, the reverent faith of the people I lived among, and their faithful everyday living, was poetry blossoms and trees and blue shies were poetry. God himself was poetry.
Lucy Larcom
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The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it — whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend.
Lucy Larcom
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The peach-bud glows, the wild bee hums, and wind-flowers wave in graceful gladness.
Lucy Larcom
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If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.
Lucy Larcom
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Whoever claims to understand another person completely, is either entirely ignorant of himself, or else has a nature so small that he can measure it easily, and supposes it to be the standard of every other nature.
Lucy Larcom
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Thou hastenest down between the hills to meet me at the road, The secret scarcely lisping of thy beautiful abode Among the pines and mosses of yonder shadowy height, Where thou dost sparkle into song, and fill the woods with light.
Lucy Larcom
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The true idea of a church has not yet been shown the world, a visible Church, I mean, unless it was in the very earliest times yes, the twelve disciples bound to their Lord in love, to do his work forever, that was a church, a Christian family.
Lucy Larcom
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My 'must-have' was poetry. From the first, life meant that to me. And, fortunately, poetry is not purchasable material, but an atmosphere in which every life may expand. I found it everywhere about me.
Lucy Larcom
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No one can feel more gratefully the charm of noble scenery, or the refreshment of escape into the unspoiled solitudes of nature, than the laborer at some close in-door employment.
Lucy Larcom
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To her bier Comes the year Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do, But, to guide her way to it, All the trees have torches lit Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through.
Lucy Larcom
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That larger vision is certain to make clear the value in our own lives of service to others.
Lucy Larcom
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The first real unhappiness I remember to have felt was when some one told me, one day, that I did not love God. I insisted, almost tearfully, that I did but I was told that if I did truly love Him I should always be good. I knew I was not that, and the feeling of sudden orphanage came over me like a bewildering cloud.
Lucy Larcom
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If an apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would be, still more than its own, the story of the sunshine that smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, of the birds that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, and of the motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals were unfolded and its form developed.
Lucy Larcom
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These blossoms, gathered in familiar paths, With dear companions now passed out of sight, Shall not be laid upon their graves. They live, Since love is deathless. Pleasure now nor pride Is theirs in mortal wise, but hallowing thoughts Will meet the offering, of so little worth, Wanting the benison death has made divine.
Lucy Larcom
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Let us not depreciate Earth. There is no atom in it but is alive and astir in the all-penetrating splendor of God. From the infinitesimal to the infinite, everything is striving to express the thought of His Presence with which it overflows.
Lucy Larcom