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[U]sefulness is happiness, and... all other things are but incidental.

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
Incidental
Happiness
Helping
Things

More quotes by 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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The rarest attainment is to grow old happily and gracefully.
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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It is my mission to help in the breaking down of classes, and to make all men feel as if they were brethren of the same family, sharing the same rights, the same capabilities, and the same responsibilities. While my hand can hold a pen, I will use it to this end and while my brain can earn a dollar, I will devote it to this end.
Lydia M. Child
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Over the river and through the wood, To grandfather's house we go The horse knows the way To carry the sleigh, Through the white and drifted snow.
Lydia M. Child
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The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.
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.
Lydia M. Child
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Neither lemonade nor anything else can prevent the inroads of old age. At present, I am stoical under its advances, and hope I shall remain so. I have but one prayer at heart and that is, to have my faculties so far preserved that I can be useful, in some way or other, to the last.
Lydia M. Child
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The civilization of any country may always be measured by the degree of equality between men and women and society will never come truly into order until there is perfect equality and copartnership between them in every department of human life.
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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Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.
Lydia M. Child
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So easy it is to see the errors of past ages, so difficult to acknowledge our own!
Lydia M. Child
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Thy treasures of gold Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear The crack of the whip, and the footsteps of fear.
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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Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have.
Lydia M. Child
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I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book.
Lydia M. Child
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Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
Lydia M. Child
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The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement. Nature always produces individuals She never produces classes.
Lydia M. Child
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But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.
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