Dinah Maria Murlock Craik: God rest you merry, gentlemen,

But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

blessing kindness friendship

according to the old joke, married people are often like little boys bathing, who cry with chattering teeth to the boys on the shore, 'Do come in, it's so warm' - it is not always warm.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

marriage boys people

Keep what is worth keeping and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

best-friend relationship friendship

Human life is so full of pain, that once past the youthful delusion that a sad countenance is interesting, and an incurable woe the most delightful thing possible, the mind instinctively turns where it can get rest, and cheer and sunshine. And the friend who can bring to it the largest portion of these is, of a natural necessity, the most useful, the most welcome, and the most dear.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

pain cheer real

Money is meant not for hoarding, but for using; the aim of life should be to use it in the right way - to spend as much as we can lawfully spend, both upon ourselves and others. And sometimes it is better to do this in our lifetime, when we can see that it is well spent, than to leave it to the chance spending of those that come after us.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

hoarding money use

Every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

every-man-for-himself devil men

Not perhaps until later life, until the follies, passions, and selfishness of youth have died out, do we . . . recognize the the inestimable blessing, the responsibility awful as sweet, of possessing or of being a friend.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

passion real sweet

What comfort there is in a cheerful spirit! how the heart leaps up to meet a sunshiny face, a merry tongue, an even temper, and a heart which either naturally, or, what is better, from conscientious principle, has learned to take all things on their bright side, believing that the Giver of life being all-perfect Love, the best offering we can make to Him is to enjoy to the full what He sends of good, and bear what He allows of evil!

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

offering heart believe

For truly, the greatest of all external blessings is it to be able to lean your heart against another heart, faithful, tender, true, and tried, and record with a thankfulness that years deepen instead of diminishing, "I have got a friend!"

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

real blessing heart

We never know through what Divine mysteries of compensation the great Father of the universe may be carrying out His sublime plan; but those three words, "God is love" ought to contain, to every doubting soul, the solution of all things.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

soul god father

A person who is careless about money is careless about everything, and untrustworthy in everything.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

untrustworthy incompetence money

Queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons, queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas, you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

women queens husband

Those whose own light is quenched are often the light-bringers.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

light

O, the sweet, sweet twilight just before the time of rest,

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

twilight clouds sweet

It is not work that kills, but "worry."

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

african-proverbs worry wrestling

Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty!

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

heart song life

Our natural and happiest life is when we lose ourselves in the exquisite absorption of home, the delicious retirement of dependent love.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

life-is home retirement

Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

wedlock lanes matrimony

With faces like dead lovers who died true.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

died lovers faces

An author departs; he does not die.

Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

dies doe writing