It is the greatest of all mistakes to begin life with the expectation that it is going to be easy, or with the wish to have it so. Lucy Larcom More Quotes by Lucy Larcom More Quotes From Lucy Larcom If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. Lucy Larcom adversity caring inspirational He who plants a tree, plants a hope. Lucy Larcom garden nature tree Whatever with the past has gone, The best is always yet to come. Lucy Larcom funny-birthday happy-birthday inspirational What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about? Lucy Larcom gossip self thinking Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good. Lucy Larcom sunshine adversity blessing It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers,--when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, "Child, you must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other aspect. Lucy Larcom appreciate life children The religion of our fathers overhung us children like the shadow of a mighty tree against the trunk of which we rested, while we looked up in wonder through the great boughs that half hid and half revealed the sky. Some of the boughs were already decaying, so that perhaps we began to see a little more of the sky than our elders; but the tree was sound at its heart. Lucy Larcom heart father children The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it — whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend. Lucy Larcom eye work morning I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough. Lucy Larcom incessant slave enough The New Hampshire girls who came to Lowell were descendants of the sturdy backwoodsmen who settled that State scarcely a hundred years before.... They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything that was worth doing. My dreamy, indolent nature was shamed into activity among them. They gave me a larger, firmer ideal of womanhood. Lucy Larcom girl work years The peach-bud glows, the wild bee hums, and wind-flowers wave in graceful gladness. Lucy Larcom flower spring wind Every true friend is a glimpse of God. Lucy Larcom very-true true-friend glimpse If the world 's a vale of tears, Smile, till rainbows span it! Lucy Larcom smile rainbow tears Whoever claims to understand another person completely, is either entirely ignorant of himself, or else has a nature so small that he can measure it easily, and supposes it to be the standard of every other nature. Lucy Larcom ignorant standards claims When April steps aside for May, Lucy Larcom rain may bird To her bier Comes the year Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do, But, to guide her way to it, All the trees have torches lit; Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through. Lucy Larcom autumn shining years One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly. Lucy Larcom mistake writing thinking We might all place ourselves in one of two ranks the women who do something, and the women who do nothing; the first being of course the only creditable place to occupy. Lucy Larcom might two firsts When I heard that there were artists, I wished I could some time be one. If I could only make a rose bloom on paper, I thought I should be happy! Or if I could at last succeed in drawing the outline of winter-stripped boughs as I saw them against the sky, it seemed to me that I should be willing to spend years in trying. Lucy Larcom artist winter years There is something in the place where we were born that holds us always by the heart-strings. Lucy Larcom heart-strings born heart
