Quotes by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.

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

Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.

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.

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Give us that grand word woman once again, and let's have done with lady; one's a term full of fine force, strong, beautiful, and firm, fit for the noblest use of tongue or pen; and one's a word for lackeys.

It has ever been since time began, and ever will be, till time lose breath, that love is a mood - no more - to man, and love to a woman is life or death.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own.

The splendid discontent of God With chaos made the world. And from the discontent of man The worlds best progress springs.

The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.

'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song; But the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong.

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.

With care, and skill, and cunning art, She parried Time's malicious dart, And kept the years at bay, Till passion entered in her heart and aged her in a day!

With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.

A weed is but an unloved flower.

From reincarnated sources and through prenatal causes I was born with unquenchable hope and unfaltering faith in God and guardian spirits. I often wept myself to sleep after a day of disappointments and worries but woke in the morning singing aloud with the joy of life.I always expected wonderful things to happen to me. In some of my hardest days when everything went wrong with everybody at home and all my manuscripts came back for six weeks at a time without one acceptance, I recall looking out of my little north window upon the lonely road bordered with lonelier Lombardy poplars, and thinking, ‘Before night something beautiful will happen to change everything.’ There was so much I wanted. …Once I read a sentence which became a life motto to me. ‘If you haven’t what you like, try to like what you have.’ I bless the author for that phrase it was such a help to me.

He who leads
Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn
That rises unafraid and full of joy
Above the blackness of the darkest night.
He must be kind to every living thing;
Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ,
And full of love for all created life.
Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie,
Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase.
Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast,
Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms
And bringing down to earth their mystic fires
To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind
And human to the core, so shall he be,
The coming leader of the coming time.

So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.

One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,
Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.

You may choose your words 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.

When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.

The man who radiates good cheer, who makes life happier wherever he meets it, is always a man of vision and faith.

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