Top 221 Quotes & Sayings by Ella Wheeler Wilcox - Page 3

Even so We find the sea of sorrow. Black as night The sullen surface meets our frightened gaze, As down we sink to darkness and despair.

Oh! not for the great departed, Who formed our country's laws, And not for the bravest-hearted, Who died in freedom's cause, And not for some living hero To whom all bend the knee, My muse would raise her song of praise - But for the man to be.

Through strife the slumbering soul awakes, We learn on error's troubled route The truths we could not prize without The sorrow of our sad mistakes.

But though that place I never gain, Herein lies comfort for my pain: I will be worthy of it.

A day which passed without a poem from my pen I considered lost and misused.

Whatever your work and whatever its worth, No matter how strong or clever, Some one will sneer if you pause to hear, And scoff at your best endeavor. For the target art has a broad expanse, And wherever you chance to hit it, Though close be your aim to the bull's-eye fame, There are those who will never admit it.

Time is the best avenger.

Hide in your heart a bitter thought, Still it has power to blight; Think Love, although you speak it not It gives the world more light.

Let us clear a little space, And make Love a burial-place. He is dead, dear, as you see, And he wearies you and me.

One bitter time of mourning, I remember, When day, and night, my sad heart did complain, My life, I said, was one cold, bleak December, And all its pleasures, were but whited pain.

Thou canst not force my soul to wish thee ill, That is the only evil that can kill.

It is time that outraged public sentiment cry out in detestation of the outrages committed in the name of religion.

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate, I had conveyed my wealth along the road. The empty sack proved now a heavier load: I was borne down beneath its worthless weight. I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate. There was no answer. Stung by sorrow's goad I forced my way into that grim abode, And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate.

The passion you forbade my lips to utter Will not be silenced. You must hear it in The sullen thunders when they roll and mutter: And when the tempest nears, with wail and din, I know your calm forgetfulness is broken, And to your heart you whisper, "He has spoken."

Whatever is a cruel wrong, Whatever is unjust, The honest years that speed along Will trample in the dust.

Then I turned to him commanding That he go the way he came, whence he came. But he answered me in sorrow, "May the Past not seek to borrow From the Present without blame - Just one memory from its store, Ere it goes to come no more, Back the pathway that it came, whence it came?"

For this is wisdom- to love and live To take what fate or the Gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to hold, and, in time--let go.

Trust in your own untried capacity.

And he who has dwelt with his heart alone, Hears all the music in friendship's tone. So better and better I comprehend How sorrow ever would be our friend.

It has always been my belief that children inherit the suppressed tendencies of their parents. A clergyman's son frequently shows abnormal tastes for the pleasures that his father denied himself.

You are your own devil, you are your own God, You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod, And no one can save you from error or sin, Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.

Say you are well, or all is well with you, and God shall hear your words and make them true.

Time loves a new lay; and the dirge he is playing Will change for you soon to a livelier strain.

How happy they are, in all seeming, How gay, or how smilingly proud, How brightly their faces are beaming, These people who make up the crowd!

Keep out of the past. It is haunted.

Many times I am asked why the suffering of animals should call forth more sympathy from me than the suffering of human beings; why I work in this direction of charitable work more than toward any other. My answer is that because I believe that this work includes all the education and lines of reform which are needed to make a perfect circle of peace and goodwill about the Earth.

My life's long radiant Summer halts at last, And lo! beside my path way I behold Pursuing Autumn glide: nor frost nor cold Has heralded her presence; but a vast Sweet calm that comes not till the year has passed Its fevered solstice, and a tinge of gold Subdues the vivid colouring of bold And passion-hued emotions. I will cast My August days behind me with my May, Nor strive to drag them into Autumn's place, Nor swear I hope when I do but remember. Now violet and rose have had their day, I'll pluck the soberer asters with good grace And call September nothing but September.

The world needs divine power in every human being the recognition of which is the secret to all success and happiness.

Know that you are great...so dominate.

It is impossible to pursue a successful literary career and follow the advice of all one's 'best friends'.I feel compelled to follow the light which my own intellect & judgement cast upon my way, rather than any one of the many conflicting rays which other minds would lend me.

I think I never passed so sad an hour, Dear friend, as that one at the church to-night. The edifice from basement to the tower Was one resplendent blaze of coloured light.

What can be said in New Year rhymes, That's not been said a thousand times? The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night. We hug the world until it stings, We curse it then and sigh for wings. We live, we love, we woo, we wed, We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead. We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, And that's the burden of a year.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,And that's the burden of a year.

God sent us here to make mistakes

Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait, And die at last with unappeased desire, Than live to be the jest of such a fate, For that is my conception of hell-fire.

Let the dream go. Are there not other dreams In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams, And shoot the shadows through and through with light? What matters one lost vision of the night? Let the dream go!

How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the telltale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye-- The smile that proves the parent to a sigh Thus doth Love speak.

There is room in the halls of pleasure for a large and lordly train, but one by one we must all file on through the narrow aisles of pain.

While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face, Love, robed like sorrow, led me by the hand And taught my doubting heart to understand That which has puzzled all the human race.

How will it be when one of us alone Goes on that strange last journey of the soul? That certain search for an uncertain goal, That voyage on which no comradeship is known?

Give her not greatness. For great souls must stand Alone and lonely in this little world: Cleft rocks that show the great Creator's hand, Thither by earthquakes hurled.

There was hell in her eyes! She was worn and jaded Her soul is at war with the life she has led. As I looked on that face so strangely faded I wonder God did not strike me dead.

Always continue to climb.

Love is the only thing that pays for birth, Or makes death welcome. Oh, dear God above This beautiful but sad, perplexing earth, Pity the hearts that know--or know not--Love!

There is no balking genius. Only death can silence it or hinder.

I like the roar of cities. In the mart, Where busy toilers strive for place and gain, I seem to read humanity's great heart, And share its hopes, its pleasures, and its pain.

Not to the curious or impatient soulThat in the start, demands the end be shown,And at each step, stops waiting for a sign;But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,Shall the great miracles of God be knownAnd life revealed, immortal and divine.

Be careful what rubbish you toss in the tide. On outgoing billows it drifts from your sight, But back on the incoming waves it may ride And land at your threshold again before night. Be careful what rubbish you toss in the tide.

This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendor Fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep.

Be hald, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all. There are to decline your nectared wine, But all you must drink life's gall.

Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving Thy strong regard for me, Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving; Let thy faith speak for thee.

Thank Fate for foes! I hold mine dear As valued friends. He cannot know The zest of life who runneth here His earthly race without a foe.

There is no thing we cannot overcome Say not thy evil instinct is inherited, Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn, And calls down punishment that is not merited.

God, what a world, if men in street and mart felt that same kinship of the human heart which makes them, in the face of fire and flood, rise to the meaning of true brotherhood.

Mourn not for the vanished ages with their grand, heroic men, who dwell in history's pages and live in the poets pen for the grandest times are before us and the world is yet to see the noblest work of this old earth in the men that are to be.

Better than glory, or honors, or fame, (Though I am striving for those to-day) To know that some heart will cherish my name, And think of me kindly, with blessings, alway.

Trust in thine own untried capacity As thou wouldst trust in God himself. Thy soul Is but an emanation from the whole. Thou dost not dream what forces lie in thee, Vast and unfathomed as the grandest sea.

Lady beware. Fan not the harmless glow Of admiration into ardent love, Lean not with red curled smiling lips above The flickering spark of sinless flame, and blow, Lest in the sudden waking of desire Thou, like the child, shalt perish in the fire.

All perfect things are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, The matchless tinting on the royal rose Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked. Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows, These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, Since they leave nothing better to expect.

Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.The winding road slants downward many a time;Yet each descent is higher than the last.