Pearl S. Buck: It is better not to say "lend." There is only giving.

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

Pearl S. Buck

truth inspirational life

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.

Pearl S. Buck

love heaven

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

Pearl S. Buck

monday work inspirational

The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members

Pearl S. Buck

society inspiring civilization

An intelligent, energetic, educated woman cannot be kept in four walls - even satin-lined, diamond-studded walls - without discovering sooner or later that they are still a prison cell.

Pearl S. Buck

women wall intelligent

Only the brave should teach....Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate a desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist. If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist, he must not teach.

Pearl S. Buck

artist teaching brave

Exclusion is always dangerous. Inclusion is the only safety if we are to have a peaceful world.

Pearl S. Buck

unity peaceful safety

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.

Pearl S. Buck

single women spring

When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.

Pearl S. Buck

struggle peace country

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Pearl S. Buck

success motivational inspirational

All things are possible until they are proved impossible - and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

Pearl S. Buck

motivational inspirational life

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.

Pearl S. Buck

emotions-feelings anxiety peace

The boundary between civilization and barbarism is difficult to draw: put one ring in your nose and you are a savage, put two rings in your ears and you are civilized.

Pearl S. Buck

savages civilization two

There is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.

Pearl S. Buck

hope joy happiness

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.

Pearl S. Buck

family mother children

An Englishman is never afraid of being laughed at. He just thinks the other fellow is a fool. But Americans still can't risk anybody laughing at them.

Pearl S. Buck

laughter laughing thinking

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Pearl S. Buck

creative blow joy

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Pearl S. Buck

freedom hope peace

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

Pearl S. Buck

failure teaching children

The community must assume responsibility for each child within its confines. Not one must be neglected whatever his condition. The community must see that every child gets the advantages and opportunities which are due him as a citizen and as a human being.

Pearl S. Buck

responsibility opportunity children