Alice Hegan Rice Quotes

Just as a pool of water cannot reflect the sky overhead when it is restless and disturbed, so we can never get a perfect vision of the Divine, and show it to others when we are disturbed with human thoughts and personal problems. It is only when we are quite still and receptive that God can think His thoughts into us and use us for His purposes.

There ain't no use in dyin' 'fore yer time. Lots of folks is walkin' 'round jes' as dead as they'll ever be.

The fascinating thing about ideals is that no sooner have we gained a desired peak than we find farther and higher peaks beyond. The thrilling adventure never ends.

I can think of no habit, kept up through the years, that binds a married couple more than that of reading good books together. Domestic problems and personal problems are for the time forgotten, and an intellectual intimacy is established that can be maintained in few other ways.

The fact that beauty is at one and the same time without cost and above price, robs it of the curse of possessiveness.

Any pursuit of happiness contrary to the common good is doomed to failure.

Joy is at its keenest when contrasted with sorrow, courage at its height when it follows fear, faith at its noblest when it grows from doubt.

In this noisy, restless, bewildering age, there is a great need for quietness of spirit. Even in our communion with God we are so busy presenting our problems, asking for help, seeking relief that we leave no moments of silence to listen for God's answers. By practice we can learn to submerge our spirits beneath the turbulent surface waves of life and reach that depth of our being where all is still, where no storms can reach us. Here only can we forget the material world and its demands on us.

Taking friendships for granted is one of the surest ways of ending them. Unless nourished, they tend to wither and die. Unless we earnestly desire its continuance we should never start a friendship any more than we would a love affair.

Some people act as if there were a penalty for carrying concealed troubles. They exhibit them at every opportunity, begging for sympathy, even condescending to accept pity. Such persons never realize that the very ones to whom they are complaining are often struggling under a burden greater than their own.

When one has a famishing thirst for happiness, one is apt to gulp down diversions wherever they are offered.

No teaching that is not based on reason can be tolerated by critical minds, but the belief that an accident of blind force produces this highly organized world is far more fantastic than the theory that a Super Intelligence devised its ordered evolution.

The hardest grief is often that which leaves no trace.

Half of our sorrows come from setting exalted standards for people and then breaking our hearts when they fail to live up to them.

There is no doubt about it that it is more difficult for a woman to follow a career than for a man. Through the centuries his time has been considered more valuable, and he has consequently been excused from wrestling with many of 'life's minor damnabilities.

Life is made up of desires that seem big and vital one minute, and little and absurd the next. I guess we get what's best for us in the end.

Metaphysicians tell us that it is easier to get the body well than to get the mind to realize its wellness.

What can people not accomplish if they will but master the secret of steadfast perseverance.

There is an invariable law that the only way to keep the real things of life is by sharing them or giving them away.

Happiness is a duty, not only because of its effect upon us but because of its influence upon others.

Somehow, I never feel like good things b'long to me till I pass 'em on to somebody else.

We sometimes forget the influence of action upon thought ... Smile, whistle, sing, play the part you want to be until you become the part you play.