47 Ella Wheeler Wilcox Quotes

Ella Wheeler Wilcox quotes

1. Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone. For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own. Sing, and the hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air. The echoes bound to a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care.

2. Rejoice, and men will seek you; Grieve, and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure, But they do not need your woe. Be glad, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all. There are none to decline your nectared wine, But alone you must drink life's gall.

3. There is room in the halls of pleasure For a long and lordly train, But one by one we must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain.

4. No question is ever settled Until it is settled right.

5. Here, on this side of the grave, Here, should we labor and love.

6. So many gods, so many creeds; So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs.

7. You never can tell when you do an act Just what the result will be; But with every deed you are sowing a seed, Though the harvest you may not see. Each kindly act is an acorn dropped In God's productive soil; You may not know, yet the tree shall grow And shelter the brows that toil. You never can tell what your thoughts will do In bringing you hate or love; For thoughts are things, and their airy wings Are swifter than carrier doves. They follow the law of the universe- Each thing must create its kind; And they speed o'er the track to bring you back Whatever went out from your mind.

8. Between the finite and the infinite The missing link of Love has left a void. Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join In one continued chain of endless life.

9. Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven Is Love's location. No dogmatic creed, No austere faith based on ignoble fear Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace. Unless the humblest creatures on the earth Are bettered by thy loving sympathy Think not to find a Paradise beyond.

10. There is no sudden entrance into Heaven. Slow is the ascent by the path of Love.

11. Body and mind, and spirit, all combine To make the Creature, human and divine. Of this great trinity no part deny. Affirm, affirm, the Great Eternal I.

12. Affirm the body, beautiful and whole, The earth-expression of immortal soul. Affirm the mind, the messenger of the hour, To speed between thee and the source of power. Affirm the spirit, the Eternal I - Of this great trinity no part deny.

13. Each mental wave we send out from the mind, Or base, or kind, Completes its circuit, then with added force Seeks its own source.

14. You may choose your word like a connoisseur, And polish it up with art, But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, Is the word that comes from the heart. You may work on your word a thousand weeks, But it will not glow like one That all unsought, leaps forth white hot, When the fountains of feeling run.

15. Look to the Great Eternal Cause And not to any man, for light. Look in; and learn the wrong, and right, From your own soul's unwritten laws. And when you question, or demur, Let Love be your Interpreter.

16. If fallacies come knocking at my door, I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score, Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt, And run the risk of barring one Truth out. And if pretension for a time deceive, And prove me one too ready to believe, Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act, I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.

17. Not to the curious or impatient soul That 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 known And life revealed, immortal and divine.

18. Breathe 'God,' in any tongue -it means the same; LOVE ABSOLUTE: Think, feel, absorb the thought; Shut out all else; until a subtle flame (A spark from God's creative centre caught) Shall permeate your being, and shall glow, Increasing in its splendour, till, YOU KNOW.

19. Give, and thou shalt receive. Give thoughts of cheer, Of courage and success, to friend and stranger. And from a thousand sources, far and near, Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.

20. Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning. And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth, There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.

21. Divine the Powers that on this trio wait. Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate. Love, Work, and Faith -these three alone are great.

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

23. Who would attain to summits still and fair, Must nerve himself through valleys of despair.

24. All love that has not friendship for its base, Is like a mansion built upon the sand.

25. To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.

26. There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent or hinder or control The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; All things give way before it soon or late. What obstacle can stay the mighty force Of the sea seeking river in its course, Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

1. 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.

2. Content is not the pathway to great deeds.

3. Don't anticipate the happiness of tomorrow. Discover it today.

4. Day's sweetest moments are at dawn.

5. 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.

6. Let me, tonight look back across the span Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say- Because of some good act to beast or human- The world is better that I lived today.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. The art of being kind is all the world needs.

10. No joy for which thy hungering heart has panted, No hope it cherishes through waiting years, But if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted For with each passionate wish the blessing nears. Tune up the fine, strong instrument of thy being To chord with thy dear hope, and do not tire. When both in key and rhythm are agreeing, Lo! thou shalt kiss the lips of thy desire. The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance, Wrapt in the silences, unseen and dumb: Essential to thy soul and thy existence-- Live worthy of it--call, and it shall come.

11. No one will grieve because your lips are dumb.

12. Time sped. And the poet through sorrow Became like his suffering kind. Again he toiled over his poems To lighten the grief of his mind.

13. And the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.

14. Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear, your head like the golden rod, and we will go sailing away from here to the beautiful Land Of Nod.

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

16. Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. You cannot charm, or interest, or please By harping in that minor chord, disease. Say you are well, or all is well with you, And God shall hear your words and make them true.

17. Why dost thou shrink from my approach, O Man? Why dost thou ever flee in fear, and cling To my false rival, Life? I do but bring Thee rest and calm. Then wherefore dost thou ban And curse me? Since the forming of God's plan I have not hurt or harmed a mortal thing, I have bestowed sweet balm for every sting, And peace eternal for earth's stormy span.

18. With every rising of the sun Think of your life as just begun. The past has shrived and buried deep All yesterdays— there let them sleep, Nor seek to summon back one ghost Of that innumerable host. Concern yourself with but today; Woo it and teach it to obey Your wish and will. Since time began Today has been the friend of man. But in his blindness and his sorrow He looks to yesterday and tomorrow.

19. 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.

20. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, and men grow better as the world grows old.

21. Back on its golden hinges The gate of Memory swings, And my heart goes into the garden And walks with the olden things.