Ella Wilcox Quotations

To sin by silence, when we should protest,Makes cowards out of men.

Why sit ye idly dreaming all the day,While the golden, precious hours flit away?See you not the day is waning, waning fast?That the morn's already vanished in the past?

Therefore I do protest against the boastOf independence in this mighty land.Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.

Life hurries pasttoo strong to stop;too sweet to loose.

Love, that outreaches to the humblest things;Work that is glad, in what it does and brings;And faith that soars upon unwearied wings.Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.Love, Work, and Faith -- these three alone are great.

Lean on thyself until thy strength is tried;Then ask God's help; it will not be denied.

So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs

Oh! what are years? A ripe three score and tenHold often less of life, in its best sense,Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.

Whatever the task that comes your way,Just take it as part of your luck.Look it right square in the eyes, and say,""This is MY task, I'll do it to-day"":Don't pass the buck.

Here, on this side of the grave,Here, should we labor and love.

God! though all other sins on earth persist,Strike dumb the blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.

Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own

Our souls should be vessels receivingThe waters of love for relievingThe sorrows of men.

Such menial duties; but her wayOf looking at them lent a graceTo things the world deemed commonplace.

Look in; and learn the wrong, and right,From your own soul's unwritten laws.And when you question, or demur,Let Love be your Interpreter.

Live to learn, and learn to liveIf you want to give men knowledgeYou must get, ere you give.

It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song. But the man worth while is the one who can smile, when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.

Who is the wise? Not he who from the startWith Wisdom's followers has taken part;But he who looks in Folly's tempting eyes,And turns away, perceiving her disguise.

Who is the strong? Not he who puts to testHis sinews with the strong and proves the best;But he who dwells where weaklings congregate,And never lets his splendid strength abate.

Waste no tearsUpon the blotted record of lost years,But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, to seeThe fair white pages that remain for thee.

The dark today leads into light tomorrow; There is no endless joy, ...and yet no endless sorrow.

We ought to make the moments notesOf happy glad Thanksgiving;The hours and days, a silent praiseOf music we are living.

Though desolateThe way may seem, command thy fate.Send forth thy thought -Create--CREATE!

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.

There is room in the halls of pleasureFor a long and lordly train,But one by one we must all file onThrough the narrow aisles of pain.

When the great universe was wroughtTo might and majesty from naught,The all creative force was -THOUGHT.

When we tell about our cause,Politicians only smile;While they mould and make our laws,What care they for rank or file?

We flatter those we scarcely know,We please the fleeting guest,And deal full many a thoughtless blowTo those who love us best.

We find what we look for in this world.

What can be said in New Year rhymes,That's not been said a thousand times?The new years come, the old years go,We know we dream, we dream we know.We rise up laughing with the light,We lie down weeping with the night.We hug the world until it stings,We curse it then and sigh for wings.We live, we love, we woo, we wed,We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,And that's the burden of a year.

Body and mind, and spirit, all combineTo make the Creature, human and divine.

BE STILL: Be stiller yet; and listen. Set the screenOf silence at the portal of your will.Relax, and let the world go by unheard.And seal your lips with some all-sacred word.

Be not impatient in delay,But wait as one who understands;When spirit rises and commands,The gods are ready to obey.

Between the finite and the infiniteThe missing link of Love has left a void.Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will joinIn one continued chain of endless life.

Conversation"God and I in space alone . . .and nobody else in view . . ."And where are all the people,Oh Lord" I said, "the earth below and the sky overheadand the dead that I once knew?""That was a dream," God smiledand said: "The dream that seemed tobe true; there were no peopleliving or dead; there was no earth, and no sky overhead,there was only myself in you.""Why do I feel no fear?" I asked,"meeting you here in this way?For I have sinned, I know full welland is there heaven and is there hell,and is this Judgement Day?""Nay, those were but dreams" the Great God said, "dreams that have ceased to be.There are no such things as fear and sin;there is no you . . . you never have been.There is nothing at all but me.

Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunateIs he whose earnest purpose never swerves,Whose slightest action or inaction servesThe one great aim.

Feast, and your halls are crowded; Fast, and the world goes by

Far from the city's dust and heat,I get but sounds and odors sweet.Who can wonder I love to stay,Week after week, here hidden away,In this sly nook that I love the best --This little brown house like a ground-bird's nest?

Fear is the twin of Faith's sworn foe, Distrust.If one breaks in your heart the other must.

There's one sad truth in life I've foundWhile journeying east and west -The only folks we really woundAre those we love the best.

The world has a thousand creeds, and never a one have I;Not a church of my own, though a million spires are pointing the way on high.But I float on the bosom of faith, that bears me along like a river;And the lamp of my soul is alight with love for life, and the world, and the Giver.

The river seeking for the seaConfronts the dam and precipice,Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;You will be what you will to be!

...the smile that is worth the praises of earth Is the smile that shines through tears.

The splendid discontent of God With Chaos, made the world; And from the discontent of man The world's best progress springs

So much of love her spirit had,She found an ever-flowing springOf happiness in everything.

Then arise, O idle dreamer! Dreams are sweet,But better flowers are growing at your feet.If you crush, or pass unheeding, idle friend,You shall answer for their ruin in the end.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,But no man can help you die.

Some souls there are that needs must tasteOf wrong, ere choosing right;We should not call those years a wasteWhich led us to the light.

Somebody's sorrow is making me weep:I know not her name, but I echo her cry,For the dearly bought baby she longed so to keep,The baby that rode to its long-lasting sleepIn the little white hearse that went rumbling by.

So young, and yet I have had all of life.Why, men have lived to see a hundred years,Who have not known the rapture, joy, and strifeOf my brief youth, its passion and its tears.

Do you wish the world were happy?Then remember day by dayJust to scatter seeds of kindnessAs you pass along the way. . . .

Do you wish the world were better?Let me tell you what to do.Set a watch upon your actions,Keep them always straight and true.

Back on its golden hingesThe gate of Memory swings,And my heart goes into the gardenAnd walks with the olden things.

Think your life was made for dreaming, nothing more,When God's work lies all unfinished at your door?

The year's four changing seasons broughtTo her own door what thousands soughtIn wandering ways and did not find -Diversion and content of mind.

This is the way of it, wide world over,One is beloved, and one is the lover,One gives and the other receives.

This is the way of it, sad earth over,The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,And the other learns to forget.For what is the use of endless sorrow?Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow;And life is not over yet.

For here lies the pleasure of living:In taking God's bounties, and givingThe gifts back again.

Talk health. The dreary, never-changing taleOf mortal maladies is worn and stale.You cannot charm, or interest, or pleaseBy harping on that minor chord, disease.

Talk happiness. The world is sad enoughWithout your woes. No path is wholly rough.

Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,That passionate Love is Pain's own mother.

The two kinds of people on earth that I meanAre the people who lift and the people who lean.

I know there are no errors,In the great Eternal plan,And all things work togetherFor the final good of man.

I know that the soul is aidedSometimes by the heart's unrest,And to grow means often to suffer --But whatever is--is best.

If there be mortal without love,He wakes to no new life above.

If you are seeking health, wealth, usefulness, skill in any direction, there is nothing and no one who can hinder your attainment of the coveted boon, if you are willing to work and wait.

If you work with zeal and ardor till the night,You can only make the wasted moments right.

But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,Shall the great miracles of God be knownAnd life revealed, immortal and divine.

If I could only weep,I think sweet help with my salt tears would come,To ease the cruel pain that is so dumb,And will not let me sleep.

The life that neither grief nor burden knowsIs dwarfed in sympathy before its close.The life that grows majestic with the yearsMust taste the bitter tonic found in tears.

All in the dark we grope along,And if we go amissWe learn at least which path is wrong,And there is gain in this.

And I am glad my heart can say,When others trip and fall(Although I safely passed that way),""I understand it all.

The human Will, that force unseen,The offspring of a deathless Soul,Can hew the way to any goal,Though walls of granite intervene.

And if pretension for a time deceive,And prove me one too ready to believe,Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.