Top 51 Quotes & Sayings by Helen Hunt Jackson

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Helen Hunt Jackson.
Last updated on November 3, 2024.
Helen Hunt Jackson

Helen Hunt Jackson was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Commercially popular, it was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times and most readers liked its romantic and picturesque qualities rather than its political content. The novel was so popular that it attracted many tourists to Southern California who wanted to see places from the book.

O sweet, delusive Noon, Which the morning climbs to find, O moment sped too soon, And morning left behind.
As soon as I began, it seemed impossible to write fast enough - I wrote faster than I would write a letter - two thousand to three thousand words in a morning, and I cannot help it.
O month when they who love must love and wed. — © Helen Hunt Jackson
O month when they who love must love and wed.
But great loves, to the last, have pulses red; All great loves that have ever died dropped dead.
When Time is spent, Eternity begins.
Words are less needful to sorrow than to joy.
Motherhood is priced Of God, at price no man may dare To lessen or misunderstand.
I know the lands are lit, with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod.
The goldenrod is yellow, The corn is turning brown, The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down.
If I could write a story that would do for the Indian one-hundredth part what 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did for the Negro, I would be thankful the rest of my life.
I shall be found with 'Indians' engraved on my brain when I am dead. A fire has been kindled within me, which will never go out.
There cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families.
If I can do one hundredth part for the Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful. — © Helen Hunt Jackson
If I can do one hundredth part for the Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful.
On the king's gate the moss grew gray; The king came not. They call'd him dead; And made his eldest son, one day, Slave in his father's stead.
When love is at its best, one loves so much that he cannot forget.
Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what's in a name?
Love has a tide!
By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.
But all lost things are in the angels' keeping, Love; No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, Love; The years of Heaven with all earth's little pain Make Good Together there we can begin again, In babyhood.
There is nothing so skillful in its own defense as imperious pride.
When the baby dies, On every side Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud. The baby was not wrapped in any shroud. The mother made no sound. Her head was bowed That men's eyes might not see Her misery.
Great loves, to the last, have pulses red; All great loves that have ever died dropped dead.
When love is at its best, one loves So much that he cannot forget.
Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second.
Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white; And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still; No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill, And willow stems grow daily red and bright. These are days when ancients held a rite Of expiation for the old year's ill, And prayer to purify the new year's will.
The wild mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament. . . . Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket.
There cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families
For April sobs while these are so glad April weeps while these are so gay,- Weeps like a tired child who had, Playing with flowers, lost its way.
Who longest waits most surely wins.
Who waits until the wind shall silent keep Will never find the ready hour to sow.
Who longest wait of all surely wins.
One of Dr. Johnson's ingredients of happiness was, "A little less time than you want." That means always to have so many things you want to see, to have, and to do, that no day is quite long enough for all you think you would like to get done before you go to bed.
Like a blind spinner in the sun,I tread my days:I know that all the threads will runAppointed ways.I know each day will bring its task,And being blind no more I ask.
That indescribable expression peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they have. — © Helen Hunt Jackson
That indescribable expression peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they have.
On the king's gate the moss grew gray;The king came not. They called him deadAnd made his eldest son one daySlave in his father's stead.
O proudly name their names who bravely sail| To seek brave lost in Arctic snows and seas!
Now and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled. Such a smile transfigures; such a smile, if the artful but know it, is the greatest weapon a face can have.
Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last.
Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self.
Gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world,-\-\it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet,-\-\feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: "At last! at last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! This is joy!
No days such honored days as these! While yet Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide For some fair thing which should forever bide On earth, her beauteous memory to set In fitting frame that no age could forget, Her name in lovely April's name did hide, And leave it there, eternally allied To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.
The new is older than the old; And newest friend is oldest friend in this: That, waiting him, we longest grieved to miss One thing we sought.
Most men call fretting a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy the peace, the happiness of a hoe.
Ah, March! we know thou art Kind-hearted, 
 spite of ugly looks and threats, 
 And, out of sight, art nursing April's violets! — © Helen Hunt Jackson
Ah, March! we know thou art Kind-hearted, spite of ugly looks and threats, And, out of sight, art nursing April's violets!
The voice of one who goes before, to makeThe paths of June more beautiful, is thineSweet May!
The woman who creates and sustains a home, and under whose hands children grow up to be strong and pure men and women, is a creator second only to God.
O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire The streams than under ice. June could not hire Her roses to forego the strength they learn In sleeping on thy breast.
Next time!' In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come?
Stain my eyes as I may, on all sides all is black.
O bees, sweet bees!" I said; "that nearest field Is shining white with fragrant immortelles Fly swiftly there and drain those honey wells.
O May, sweet-voice one, going thus before, Forever June may pour her warm red wine Of life and passions,--sweeter days are thine!
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