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. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If fallacies come knocking at my door, I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score, Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt, And run the risk of barring one Truth out. 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.

Voice of the Voiceless
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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.
I am the voice of the voiceless:
Through me, the dumb shall speak;
Till the deaf world’s ear be made to hear
The cry of the wordless weak.
From street, from cage and from kennel,
From jungle, and stall, the wail
Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
Of the mighty against the frail
For love is the true religion,
And love is the law sublime;
And all is wrought, where love is not
Will die at the touch of time.
Oh shame on the mothers of mortals
Who have not stopped to teach
Of the sorrow that lies in dear, dumb eyes,
The sorrow that has no speech.
The same Power formed the sparrow
That fashioned man-the King;
The God of the whole gave a living soul
To furred and to feathered thing.
And I am my brother’s keeper,
And I will fight his fight;
And speak the word for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.

To possess character is to be useful, and to be useful is to be independent, and to be useful and independent, is to be happy, even in the midst of sorrow; for sorrow is not necessarily unhappiness.