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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
Things
Incidental
Happiness
Helping

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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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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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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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
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Law is not law, if it violates the principles of eternal justice.
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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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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Love is the divine quality that everywhere produces and restores life. To each and every one of us, it gives the power of working miracles if we will.
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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Yours for the unshackled exercise of every faculty by every human being.
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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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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Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.
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
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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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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 laws of our being are such that we must perform some degree of use in the world, whether we intend it, or not but we can deprive ourselves of its indwelling joy, by acting entirely from the love of self.
Lydia M. Child
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Home - that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry it thither, as on an angel's wings.
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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Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.
Lydia M. Child