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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
Helping
Things
Incidental
Happiness
More quotes by Lydia M. Child
The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.
Lydia M. Child
Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have.
Lydia M. Child
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
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
Even if nothing worse than wasted mental effort could be laid to the charge of theology, that alone ought to be sufficient to banish it from the earth, as one of the worst enemies of mankind.
Lydia M. Child
Birds and beasts have in fact our own nature, flattened a semi-tone.
Lydia M. Child
But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.
Lydia M. Child
I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln. With all his deficiencies, it must be admitted that he has grown continually.
Lydia M. Child
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
a great mind can attend to little things, but a little mind cannot attend to great things.
Lydia M. Child
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
I keep working because I am quite sure that no particle of goodness or truth is ever really lost, however appearances may be to the contrary.
Lydia M. Child
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
So easy it is to see the errors of past ages, so difficult to acknowledge our own!
Lydia M. Child
Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.
Lydia M. Child
We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.
Lydia M. Child
Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.
Lydia M. Child
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
Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it for such do always see that every cloud is an angel's face.
Lydia M. Child
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.
Lydia M. Child
