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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.

Lydia M. Child

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Lydia M. Child
Age: 78 †
Born: 1802
Born: January 1
Died: 1880
Died: January 1
Activist
Geologist
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Medford
Massachusetts
Lydia Maria Francis Child
Always
Spirituality
Like
Wise
Cautions
Tell
Carefulness
Spirit
Attendant
Doe
Socrates
Human
Caution
Humans
Signals
Every
Obey

More quotes by Lydia M. Child

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Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
Lydia M. Child
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There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface.
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Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.
Lydia M. Child
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Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.
Lydia M. Child
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I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me.
Lydia M. Child
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a great mind can attend to little things, but a little mind cannot attend to great things.
Lydia M. Child
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Reverence is the highest quality of man's nature and that individual, or nation, which has it slightly developed, is so far unfortunate. It is a strong spiritual instinct, and seeks to form channels for itself where none exists thus Americans, in the dearth of other objects to worship, fall to worshiping themselves.
Lydia M. Child
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Birds and beasts have in fact our own nature, flattened a semi-tone.
Lydia M. Child
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All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure.
Lydia M. Child
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Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.
Lydia M. Child
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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.
Lydia M. Child
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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.
Lydia M. Child
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Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.
Lydia M. Child
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[U]sefulness is happiness, and... all other things are but incidental.
Lydia M. Child
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A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.
Lydia M. Child
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It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.
Lydia M. Child
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Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike.
Lydia M. Child
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Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have.
Lydia M. Child
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Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote, but I'll come and rap on the ballot box.
Lydia M. Child
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We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.
Lydia M. Child