• Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

    Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.

    Help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood.

    Many argue; not many converse.

    Resolve to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.

    I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us.

    “Stay” is a charming word in a friend’s vocabulary.

    I asked for bread, and I got a stone in the shape of a pedestal.

    Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.

    It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.

    I put in my list all the busy, useful independent spinsters I know, for liberty is a better husband than love to many of us.

    Housekeeping ain’t no joke!

    I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it.

    I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don’t think any one will deny us.

    People don’t have fortunes left them — nowadays; men have to work, and women to marry for money. It’s a dreadfully unjust world….

    Now we are expected to be as wise as men who have had generations of all the help there is, and we scarcely anything.

    Now I am beginning to live a little and feel less like a sick oyster at low tide.

    I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.

    Love is a great beautifier.

    I do not ask for any crown
    But that which all may win;
    Nor try to conquer any world
    Except the one within.
    Be Thou my guide until I find
    Led by a tender hand,
    The happy kingdom in myself
    And dare to take command.

    Thoreau’s Flute
    Above man’s aims his nature rose.
    The wisdom of a just content
    Made one small spot a continent,
    And turned to poetry life’s prose.
    [about Henry David Thoreau]

    Poor dull Concord. Nothing colorful has come through here since the Redcoats.

    A child her wayward pencil drew
    On margins of her book;
    Garlands of flower, dancing elves,
    Bud, butterfly, and brook,
    Lessons undone, and plum forgot,
    Seeking with hand and heart
    The teacher whom she learned to love
    Before she knew t’was Art.