Lydia Maria Child Quotes (34 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Famous Lydia Maria Child Quotes

“In the first place, an unjust law exists in this Commonwealth, by which marriages between persons of different color is pronounced illegal. I am perfectly aware of the gross ridicule to which I may subject myself by alluding to this particular; but I have lived too long, and observed too much, to be disturbed by the world's mockery.”

Lydia Maria Child

Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

“They [the slaves] have stabbed themselves for freedom—jumped into the waves for freedom—starved for freedom—fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot—and their tyrants have been their historians!”

Lydia Maria Child

Chapter VI http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca3t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

“Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. Divine Providence has a mission for her children to fulfill; though a mission unrecognized by political economists. There is ever a moral balance preserved in the universe, like the vibrations of the pendulum. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/57/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 33

“None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/59/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 34

“Reverence is the highest quality of man’s nature; and that individual, or nation, which has it slightly developed, is so far unfortunate. It is a strong spiritual instinct, and seeks to form channels for itself where none exists; thus Americans, in the dearth of other objects to worship, fall to worshipping themselves.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/63/12263.html, vol. 1, letter 18

“Genius hath electric power
Which earth can never tame,
Bright suns may scorch and dark clouds lower,
Its flash is still the same.”

Lydia Maria Child

Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage

Lydia Maria Child Quotes about love

“Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kind, sunshiny old age.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/66/12266.html, vol. 1, letter 37

“The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word LOVE. It is the divine vitality that produces and restores life.”

Lydia Maria Child

Letters from New York https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=dcYDAAAAQAAJ&rdid=book-dcYDAAAAQAAJ&rdot=1 (1841-1843), p. 206, Letter XXVIII, 29 Sep 1842 1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Context: The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word LOVE. It is the divine vitality that produces and restores life. To each and every one of us it gives the power of working miracles, if we will.

“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decypher even fragments of their meaning.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/58/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 26

“The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word LOVE. It is the divine vitality that produces and restores life. To each and every one of us it gives the power of working miracles, if we will.”

Lydia Maria Child

Lydia Maria Child Quotes

“Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote, but I'll come and rap on the ballot box.”

Lydia Maria Child

Letter to Sarah Shaw (1856)
1850s

“Fifty years hence, the black laws of Connecticut will be a greater source of amusement to the antiquarian, than her famous blue laws.”

Lydia Maria Child

Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833) Context: I do not know how the affair at Canterbury is generally considered; but I have heard individuals of all parties and all opinions speak of it—and never without merriment or indignation. Fifty years hence, the black laws of Connecticut will be a greater source of amusement to the antiquarian, than her famous blue laws.

“I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln.”

Lydia Maria Child

Letter to George W. Julian (8 April 1865), as quoted in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery http://books.google.com/books?id=4b8m7cv3wTIC&pg=PA335#v=onepage&q&f=false, by Eric Foner, p. 336 1860s Context: I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln. With all his deficiencies, it must be admitted that he has grown continually.

“The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men and women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and education of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive, in return, co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties, now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/60/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 34

“That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.”

Lydia Maria Child

Letter to the Advocates of Woman’s Suffrage (1870).
1870s

“That man’s best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature’s infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/67/12267.html,vol. 1, letter 38

“Yours for the unshackled exercise of every faculty by every human being.”

Lydia Maria Child

Message to woman suffrage supporters (c. 1875)
1870s

“The United States is…a warning rather than an example to the world.”

Lydia Maria Child

To the twenty-fifth-anniversary meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1857)
1850s

“Pillars are fallen at thy feet,
Fanes quiver in the air,
A prostrate city is thy seat,
And thou alone art there.”

Lydia Maria Child

Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage

“We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.”

Lydia Maria Child

Chapter VI http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca3t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

“Home—that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry it thither, as on an angel’s wings.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/61/12261.html, vol. 1, letter 34

“It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.”

Lydia Maria Child

The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages http://books.google.ca/books?id=mGmQMdHqj9AC&pg=PA451&dq=It+is+impossible+to+exaggerate+the+evil+work+theology++Lydia+Maria+Child&hl=en&sa=X&ei=At4QUYLKOrOM0QGp34DIBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=It%20is%20impossible%20to%20exaggerate%20the%20evil%20work%20theology%20%20Lydia%20Maria%20Child&f=false, 1855, p. 451, vol. 3 1850s

“Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face. Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the hardest of all others for him to bear; but they are so, simply because they are the very ones he most needs.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/64/12264.html, vol. 1, letter 39

“Neither lemonade nor anything else can prevent the inroads of old age. At present, I am stoical under its advances, and hope I shall remain so. I have but one prayer at heart; and that is, to have my faculties so far preserved that I can be useful, in some way or other, to the last.”

Lydia Maria Child

1860s Source: Letter to Harriet Seward http://www.bartleby.com/66/72/12272.html (1869)

“In the first place, the government ought not to be invested with power to control the affections, any more than the consciences of citizens. A man has at least as good a right to choose his wife, as he has to choose his religion. His taste may not suit his neighbors; but so long as his deportment is correct, they have no right to interfere with his concerns.”

Lydia Maria Child

Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

“All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure.”

Lydia Maria Child

1860s Source: Letter to John Fraser http://www.bartleby.com/66/71/12271.html (1868)

“I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me.”

Lydia Maria Child

Letter to Ellis Gray Loring (1843).
1840s

“The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/62/12262.html, vol. 1, letter 39

“Neither the planters nor the Colonization Society, seem to ask what right we have to remove people from the places where they have been born and brought up, —where they have a home, which, however miserable, is still their home, —and where their relatives and acquaintances all reside. Africa is no more their native country than England is ours, —nay, it is less so, because there is no community of language or habits; —besides, we cannot say to them, as Gilpin said to his horse, "'Twas for your pleasure you came here, you shall go back for mine."”

Lydia Maria Child

Chapter V http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca2t.html 1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

“Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.”

Lydia Maria Child

The New England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day http://www.potw.org/archive/potw64.html, st. 1, from Flowers for Children (1844-1846). 1840s

“I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book.”

Lydia Maria Child

"Concerning Women", Independent, 21 Oct 1869, as quoted in "Extracts from 'Concerning Women'" in A Lydia Maria Child Reader (1997), edited by Carolyn L. Karcher, p 403 https://books.google.com/books?id=l1lv2eDR-ocC&pg=PA403&lpg=PA403&dq=%22no+woman+could+expect+to+be+regarded+as+a+lady+after+she+had+written+a+book%22&source=bl&ots=m4wJPHeLvD&sig=tyepgWWYYRTodRbMJwCW5wZOwvs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4jdDQ4ojSAhWKSiYKHZl_AnUQ6AEIKzAD#v=onepage&q=%22no%20woman%20could%20expect%20to%20be%20regarded%20as%20a%20lady%20after%20she%20had%20written%20a%20book%22&f=false.

“There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface. Everything seems to me to come from the Infinite, to be filled with the Infinite, to be tending toward the Infinite. Do I see crowds of men hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes—but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpfulness, human sympathy, the common bond of brotherhood, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters.”

Lydia Maria Child

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/65/12265.html, vol. 1, letter 1

“England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.”

Lydia Maria Child

Supposititious Speech of James Otis. The Rebels, Chap. iv

“Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.”

Lydia Maria Child

Philothea http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9982 (1836), p. 51 (in EPUB version) 1830s