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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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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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A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.
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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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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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
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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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An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves.
Lydia M. Child
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Yours for the unshackled exercise of every faculty by every human being.
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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Law is not law, if it violates the principles of eternal justice.
Lydia M. Child
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Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.
Lydia M. Child
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It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil can be overcome by physical means.
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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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
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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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Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have.
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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I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me.
Lydia M. Child
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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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The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement. Nature always produces individuals She never produces classes.
Lydia M. Child