Ella Wheeler Wilcox Wisdom Quotations

For this is wisdom- to love and live To take what fate or the Gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to hold, and, in time--let go.

Ah, lady! it is hardly what you thought it, This life of luxury and social power; You gave yourself as principal, and bought it, But God extracts the interest hour by hour.

Then I turned to him commanding That he go the way he came, whence he came. But he answered me in sorrow, "May the Past not seek to borrow From the Present without blame - Just one memory from its store, Ere it goes to come no more, Back the pathway that it came, whence it came?"

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...

Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait, And die at last with unappeased desire, Than live to be the jest of such a fate, For that is my conception of hell-fire.

High in the heavens I saw the moon this morning, Albeit the sun shone bright; Unto my soul it spoke, in voice of warning, "Remember Night!"

Don't look for flaws as you go through life and even when you find them it is wise and kind to be somewhat blind, and look for the virtue behind them.

And however dark the skies may appear, And however souls may blunder, I tell you it all will work out clear, For good lies over and under.