60 Quotes by Lydia Maria Francis Child

There have always been a large class of thinkers who deny that the world makes any progress. They say we move in a circle; that evils are never conquered, but only change their forms.

Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.

I keep working because I am quite sure that no particle of goodness or truth is ever really lost, however appearances may be to the contrary.

I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book.

None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.

The laws of our being are such that we must perform some degree of use in the world, whether we intend it, or not; but we can deprive ourselves of its indwelling joy, by acting entirely from the love of self.

England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.

But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.

Over the river and through the wood To grandfather’s house we go.