Lucy Larcom quotes

If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. (Lucy Larcom)
If the world 's a vale of tears, Smile, till rainbows span it! View quote
Lucy Larcom
The curse of covetousness is that it destroys manhood by substituting money for character. View quote
Lucy Larcom
From the first opening of our eyes, it is the light that attracts us. We clutch aimlessly with our baby fingers at the gossamer-motes in the sunbeam, and we die reaching out after an ineffable blending of earthly and heavenly beauty which we shall never fully comprehend. View quote
Lucy Larcom
What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about? View quote
Lucy Larcom
Sometimes it seems to me that God's way of dealing with me is not to let me see much of my friends, those who are most to me in the spiritual life, lest I should forget that the invisible bond is the only reality. That is the only way I can reconcile myself to the inevitable separations of life and death. View quote
Lucy Larcom
O Mariner-soul, Thy quest is but begun, There are new worlds Forever to be won. View quote
Lucy Larcom
Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good. View quote
Lucy Larcom
Whatever science and philosophy may do for mankind, the world can never outgrow its need of the simplicity that is in Christ. View quote
Lucy Larcom
There is something in the place where we were born that holds us always by the heart-strings. View quote
Lucy Larcom
I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough. (Lucy Larcom)
We might all place ourselves in one of two ranks the women who do something, and the women who do nothing; the first being of course the only creditable place to occupy. View quote
Lucy Larcom
One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly. View quote
Lucy Larcom
We were not meant to mask ourselves before our fellow-beings, but to be, through our human forms, true and clear utterances of the spirit within. Since God gave us these bodies, they must have been given us as guides to Him and revealers of Him. View quote
Lucy Larcom
Let us not depreciate Earth. There is no atom in it but is alive and astir in the all-penetrating splendor of God. From the infinitesimal to the infinite, everything is striving to express the thought of His Presence with which it overflows. View quote
Lucy Larcom
Whoever claims to understand another person completely, is either entirely ignorant of himself, or else has a nature so small that he can measure it easily, and supposes it to be the standard of every other nature. View quote
Lucy Larcom
By suns unsettling kist. Out through the utmost gates of space, Past where the gray stars drift, To the widening Infinite, my soul Glides on, a vessel swift, Yet loses not her anchorage In yonder azure rift. View quote
Lucy Larcom
Oh, her heart's adrift with one On an endless voyage gone! Night and morning Hannah's at the window binding shoes. View quote
Lucy Larcom
I do not own an inch of land, But all I see is mine. View quote
Lucy Larcom
No one can feel more gratefully the charm of noble scenery, or the refreshment of escape into the unspoiled solitudes of nature, than the laborer at some close in-door employment. View quote
Lucy Larcom
A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us. (Lucy Larcom)
It is one of the most beautiful facts in this human existence of ours, that we remember the earliest and freshest part of it most vividly. Doubtless it was meant that our childhood should live on in us forever. View quote
Lucy Larcom
A friend is a beloved mystery; dearest always because he is not ourself, and has something in him which it is impossible for us to fathom. If it were not so, friendship would lose its chief zest. View quote
Lucy Larcom
Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality. View quote
Lucy Larcom
The true idea of a church has not yet been shown the world, a visible Church, I mean, unless it was in the very earliest times; yes, the twelve disciples bound to their Lord in love, to do his work forever, that was a church, a Christian family. View quote
Lucy Larcom