Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Wise
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.Collection: Appreciation
The world needs divine power in every human being the recognition of which is the secret to all success and happiness.Collection: Secret
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.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Forgiveness
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.Collection: Forgiveness
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.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: Friendship
There are ghosts in the room. As I sit here alone, from the dark corners there They come out of the gloom, And they stand at my side and they lean on my chair.Collection: Fear
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.Collection: Anger
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.Collection: Courage
Wiped the cold dew-drops from his cheek And sought the mourner's side again. "Once more, dear lady, I must speak: Your last remaining son was slain Just at the closing of the fight; Twas he who sent me here to-night." "God knows," the man said afterward, "The fight itself was not so hard."Collection: Sad
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.Collection: Lonely
God made poor woman with no heart, But gave her skill, and tact, and art, And so she lives, and plays her part. We must not blame, but pity her.Collection: Sad
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."Collection: Love
No path is wholly rough.Collection: Gratitude
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.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Hope
Life is a garden forever in flower.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Pain
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other, That passionate Love is Pain's own mother.Collection: Love
Love is the crown that glorifies; the curse That brands and burdens; it is life and death. It is the great law of the universe; And nothing can exist without its breath.Collection: Love
Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin, As sweet as clover-honey in its cell; Love is the password whereby souls get in To Heaven--the gate that leads, sometimes, to Hell.Collection: Love
But now I know that there is no killing A thing like Love, for it laughs at Death. There is no hushing, there is no stilling That which is part of your life and breath. You may bury it deep, and leave behind you The land, the people that knew your slain; It will push the sods from its grave, and find you On wastes of water or desert plain.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Love
Know that you are great...so dominate.Collection: Success
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.Collection: Monday
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,And that's the burden of a year.Collection: Years
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.Collection: Summer
Talk faith. The world is better off without, Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.Collection: Faith
And so for me there is no sting of death, And so the grave has lost its victory. It is but crossing-with abated breath And white, set face-a little strip of sea To find the loved ones waiting on the shore, More beautiful, more precious than before.Collection: Love
Lean on thyself until thy strength is tried; Then ask God's help; it will not be denied. Use thine own sight to see the way to go; When darkness falls ask God the path to show. Think for thyself and reason out thy plan; God has His work and thou hast thine. Exert thy will and use for self-control; God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul. All thine immortal powers bring into play; Think, act, strive, reason, and look up and pray.Collection: Strength
Just a little every day That's the way Children learn to read and write Bit by bit and mite by mite.Collection: Children
How fleeting the sorrows of youth, how slight the foundations on which the young build towers of despair.Collection: Sorrow
Let mine not be that saddest fate of all To live beyond my greater self; to see My faculties decaying, as the tree Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall... "She lives, but all her usefulness is past."Collection: Appreciation
Whatever is... is best.Collection: Positive Thinking
Distrust that man who tells you to distrust. He takes the measure of his own small soul, and thinks the world no larger.Collection: Thinking
There is no language that love does not speak.Collection: Life
I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain, And troubles swarm like bees about a hive; I shall believe the heights for which I strive Are only reached by anguish and by pain; And though I groan and tremble with my crosses, I yet shall see, through my severest losses, The greater gain.Collection: Faith
All roads that lead to God are good.Collection: God
Who would attain to summits still and fair,Must nerve himself through valleys of despair.Collection: Despair