There is no hell like that of a selfish heart, and there is no misfortune so great as that of not being able to make a sacrifice. These two thoughts … - Julia Ward Howe

The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness.

While the war was still in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed. The question forced itself upon me, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?" I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat. Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.