Top 53 Quotes & Sayings by Edwin Markham

Greed and Gain, grim guardians of the great god Mammon, continually cry in the ears of the poor, 'Give us your little ones!' And forever do the poor push out their little ones at the imperious ukase, feeding the children to a blind Hunger that is never filled.

'Custom is the great deadener.' There is no doubt that we of the white race are going on obliviously supporting customs that would seem abhorrent and incredible to a higher and more brotherly civilization.

In my boyhood, cattle-raising ran almost neck and neck with grain-raising. In my secluded little valley in the Suisun Hills, the rodeo was the most exhilarating spectacle in the round year.

Bierce radiates brilliancy, and perhaps no other man of letters ever had a more ready command of condensed expression. For him, each word has its unique place in the peerage of words, and he would not use a word out of place any sooner than he would thrust an ape into a captain's saddle.

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.

There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.

It is doubtless true that men are bad because they are unhappy. If anyone could give them real happiness, the happiness of brotherhood, they would all want to live the true and brotherly life.

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, the emptiness of ages in his face, and on his back the burden of the world.

The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?

We have ground for believing that a noble form of socialism existed among the prehistoric and primitive people on this planet, the people that broke into restless groups after the ancient Deluge and went wandering over the globe. For we find a socialist tendency in all the barbaric tribes of earth.

Use and beauty - these should be the ends of all human effort. But the competitive struggle swings us away from this high ground and plunges us into a quagmire fight for cheap goods and cheap labor.

Oft when the white, still dawn lifted the skies and pushed the hills apart, I have felt it like a glory in my heart.

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.

Few cities have been more definitely impressed upon the imagination of the world than San Francisco, this gray-hilled city on the peninsula by the hospitable bay, where Saint Francis protects the ships as he protected the birds of Assisi.

Spain held the doctrine (and was right in holding it) that every human enterprise should stand on two pillars - the temporal and the spiritual. To depend upon one of these pillars alone is to call down final failure upon any undertaking.

Big money is not a good thing for a little soul: it will only ensnare his feet, and he will fall to his ruin. Wealth is safe only for those who have a wealth of wisdom.

Every man on the planet should do some physical work: he should help in the bread-labor of mankind. He should also do some of the intellectual work: he should help in the thought-labor of mankind. In a word, every thinker should work, and every worker should think.

The open street, like the open sea, is an inviting thing to the mind of man. It is one of the few places where all may meet as equals under sun or rain; but only a John Bunyan could adequately portray the danger of the cities with their pitfalls for the young unguarded feet.

It is better to rust out than wear out.

For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike.

The crest and crowning of all good, Life's final star, is brotherhood.

Ah, great it is to believe the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream; but a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true!

Force cannot transmit a moral principle: moral ideas can be received only through the reason of the heart.

To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.

Is it not a grotesque civilization which sends missionaries across the sea to save the souls of the heathen, and yet permits conditions at home that debauch the children at our very doors?

Mr. Rihani is a man of ardent poetic temperament, a clever poet, and a man of unworldly ideals.

There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in the liberty of all. There is no true security for the individual except as he finds it in the security for all.

He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In ! From the poem " Outwitted

Earth Is Enough. We men of Earth have here the stuff Of Paradise - we have enough! We need no other stones to build The Temple of the Unfulfilled - No other ivory for the doors - No other marble for the floors - No other cedar for the beam And dome of man's immortal dream. Here on the paths of every-day - Here on the common human way Is all the stuff the gods would take To build a Heaven, to mold and make New Edens. Ours is the stuff sublime To build Eternity in time!

The sequoias belong to the silences of the milleniums. Many of them have seen a hundred human generations rise, give off their little clamors and perish. They seem indeed to be forms of immortality standing here amoing the transitory shapes of time.

I (God) will leave man to make the fateful guess, Will leave him torn between the no and yes, Leave him unresting till he rests in me, Drawn upward by the choice that makes him free, Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose, With all in life to win or all to lose.

The future life is where we will go on helping to bring the universe to perfection, which is God's grand ultimate aim. [The purpose of life] is to help God run the universe. Everyone in that better land will be busy all the time, and the environment will be perfect all the time for doing the work which God assigns to all.

Choices are the hinges of destiny.

He fed his spirit with the bread of books

At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky is a place of central calm.

Three were the fates. Poverty that chains; gray drudgery that grinds the hope away, and gaping ignorance that starves the soul.

In vain we build the city if we do not first build the man.

Here is the Truth in a little creed, Enough for all the roads we go: In Love is all the law we need, In Christ is all the God we know.

By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us.

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Sorrows come to stretch out places in the heart for joy.

Yes, take a little time to play And look at life the other way. God rested when the world was made: Rest now, old friend; be not afraid. But think not that your work is over, That you are now a foot-free rover, A rambler upon idle ways, Whittling away the golden days. For in the road climb to the goal There's no long furlough for a soul. There's no long pause: on every height Another summit swims in sight. The long road rises, scene by scene, With little restings in between.

I fear the vermin that shall undermineSenate and citadel and school and shrine.

No soul can be forever banned, Eternally bereft, Whoever falls from God's right hand Is caught into his left.

Ah, great it is to believe the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream; But a greater thing is to fight life through, and at the end, 'The dream is true!'

At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky And flinging the cloud and the towers by, Is a place of central calm: So here in the roar of mortal things, I have a place where my spirit sings, In the hollow of God's Palm.

Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out. When the great oak is straining in the wind, The boughs drink in new beauty and the trunk Sends down a deeper root on the windward side. Only the soul that knows the mighty grief Can know the mighty rapture, Sorrows come To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

The thing that is incredible is life itself.

Fight ever on: this earthly stuff If used God’s way will be enough. Face to the firing line o friend Fight out life’s battle to the end. One soldier, when the fight was red, Threw down his broken sword and fled. Another snatched it, won the day, With what his comrade flung away.

By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two

That in the human plan nothing is worth the making if it does not make the man.

We are all blind until we see That in the human plan Nothing is worth the making If it does not make the man. Why build these cities glorious If man unbuilded goes? We build the world in vain Unless the builders also grow.

Lincoln, the Man of the People