Eleanor H. Porter citations

“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out!… The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes — his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!… When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good — you will get that…. Tell your son Tom you KNOW he'll be glad to fill that woodbox — then watch him start, alert and interested!”

“Be glad. Be good. Be brave.”

“Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about—no matter what 'twas”

“… there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”

“… if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—SOME.”

“Well, maybe 'tis natural. Of course things you don't know about are always nicer'n things you do, same as the pertater on 'tother side of the plate is always the biggest. But I wish I looked that way ter somebody 'way off. Wouldn't it be jest great, now, if only somebody over in India wanted ME?”

“Mrs. Snow had lived forty years, and for fifteen of those years she had been too busy wishing things were different to find much time to enjoy things as they were.”

“…this great grey pile of stone has been a house, never a home. It takes a woman's hand and heart, or a child's presence to make a home…”

“It's funny how dogs and cats know the insides of folks better than other folks do, isn't it?”