It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward More Quotes by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward More Quotes From Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward I believe in women; and in their right to their own best possibilities in every department of life. I believe that the methods ofdress practiced among women are a marked hindrance to the realization of these possibilities, and should be scorned or persuaded out of society. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward fashion realization believe It seems to me that life is always undoing for us something that we have just laboriously done. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward undoing done life-is ... to work, to work hard, to see work steadily, and see it whole, was the way to be reputable. I think I always respected a goodblacksmith more than a lady of leisure. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward work way thinking Next to the love between man and his Creator, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward heart love-is men A perfect marriage is like a pure heart ... those who have it are fit to see God. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward fit perfect heart The great law of denial belongs to the powerful forces of life, whether the case be one of coolish baked beans, or an unrequited affection. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward denial powerful law Imagination is built upon knowledge. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward built imagination The woman's personal identity is a vast undiscovered country -- with which Society has yet to acquaint itself, and by which it is yet to be revolutionized. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward personal-identity identity country Write, if you must; not otherwise. Do not write, if you can earn a fair living at teaching or dressmaking, at electricity or hod-carrying. Make shoes, weed cabbages, survey land, keep house, make ice-cream, sell cake, climb a telephone pole. Nay, be a lightning-rod peddler or a book agent, before you set your heart upon it that you shall write for a living.... Living? It is more likely to be dying by your pen; despairing by your pen; burying hope and heart and youth and courage in your ink-stand. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward weed teaching book A literary woman's best critic is her husband. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward women marriage husband ... when one reflects on the books one never has written, and never may, though their schedules lie in the beautiful chirography which marks the inception of an unexpressed thought upon the pages of one's notebook, one is aware, of any given idea, that the chances are against its ever being offered to one's dearest readers. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward notebook beautiful lying Death is not the worst sorrow. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward worst sorrow death Truth, like climate, is common property. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward climate truth common Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if He had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward novelists purpose way A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward ignorance teaching teacher What an immense power over life is the power of possessing distinct aims. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward possessing aim life-is ... life is moral responsibility. Life is several other things, we do not deny. It is beauty, it is joy, it is tragedy, it is comedy, it is psychical and physical pleasure, it is the interplay of a thousand rude or delicate motions and emotions, it is the grimmest and the merriest motley of phantasmagoria that could appeal to the gravest or the maddest brush ever put to palette; but it is steadily and sturdily and always moral responsibility. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward rude responsibility joy The rainiest nights, like the rainiest lives, are by no means the saddest. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward saddest night mean Surely it is one of the simplest laws of taste in dress, that it shall not attract undue attention from the wearer to the worn. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward law dresses attention Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful, the formation of fixed habits of work. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward grateful habit enough
