76 Quotes by James Whitcomb Riley

To make the world a friendly place, one must show it a friendly face.

The most essential factor is persistence – the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.

It is no use to grumble and complain; It’s just as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain – Why, rain’s my choice.

Think of him still as the same, I say, He is not dead, he is just – away.

The ripest peach is highest on the tree.

I love the horse from hoof to head. From head to hoof and tail to mane. I love the horse as I have said – From head to hoof and back again.

Oh, the world’s a curious compound, with its honey and its gall, With its cares and bitter crosses, but a good world after all. And a good God must have made it-leastways, that is what I say, When a hand is on my shoulder in a friendly sort of way.

O’er folded blooms On swirls of musk, The beetle booms adown the glooms And bumps along the dusk.

When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago – since that time he has been toiling, working, and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery.