Sarah Josepha Hale Quotes

There are few sensations more painful than in the midst of deep grief, to know the season which we have always associated with mirth and rejoicing is at hand.

Nor need we power or splendor, </br> Wide halls or lordly dome, </br> The good, the true, the tender, </br> These form the wealth of home.

A man is never more self satisfied than when he is confirming a favorite theory.

Readers soon tire of prefaces, and skip them, and so the labor of writing them is lost.

Why is it that water, so monotonous in its characteristics, should nevertheless, possess a charm for every mind? I believe it is chiefly because it bears the impress of the Creator, which we feel neither the power of time or of man can efface or alter.

A few hundred dollars will dry the weeping eyes of the most despairing damsel, and make her think the defection of her plighted swain a very lucky speculation—and so instead of breaking her own heart, she very coolly determines to break his credit, comforting herself with the thought that cash is more current than love.

It is a bad business, dealing in lottery tickets...Riches got in such a hasty manner never wear well.

Happiness is, in truth, a very cheap thing when the heart will be contented to traffic with nature—art has quite a different price.

Americans have two ardent passions; the love of liberty, and love of distinction. These passions mutually stimulate and increase each other ; the enjoyment of equal rights as citizens giving every man a chance of becoming eminent, and that eminence being derived from living under a free government, the Americans are thus necessarily as ambitious of fame as they are tenacious of freedom.

What in the rising man was industry and economy, becomes in the rich man parsimony and avarice.

The violet bank, the moss-fringed seat </br> Beneath the drooping tree.

Mary had a little lamb, </br> Its fleece was white as snow, </br> And every where that Mary went </br> The lamb was sure to go.

There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind. The person who can regard the changes in the forest foliage,—that can watch the slow circles of the dead leaf, as it falls from the bough of some lofty tree, till it mingles with the thousands already covering the ground beneath, and not moralize is—not a person that I would advise to retire to the country, in search of happiness. He or she had better stay in the city and be amused. Those who cannot think, have, in my opinion, a necessity (which goes very far towards creating a right) for amusement.

O, beautiful rainbow, </br> All woven of light! </br> There's not in thy tissue, </br> One shadow of night:— </br> It seems as heav'n opened, </br> When thou dost appear, </br> And a visible presence </br> Of angels drew near, </br> And sung the rainbow, </br> The rainbow— </br> The smile of God is here.

A day of bliss is quickly told, </br> A thousand would not make us old </br> As one of sorrow doth— </br> It is by cares, by woes and tears, </br> We round the sum of human years——