Julia Ward Howe Quotes

Much of the work of every life is done in the dark.

Every fallen woman represents a man as guilty as herself, who escapes human detection, but whose soul lies open before God.

The broken eggshell of a civilization which time has hatched and devoured.

God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Many a woman will pass for elegant in a ballroom, or even at a court drawing room, whose want of true breeding would become evident in a chosen company.

I never could be good when I was not happy.

How utterly are one's best thoughts invaded by this going out in society.

Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature.

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?

The reason why education is usually so poor among women of fashion is, that it is not needed for the life which they elect to lead.

While your life is the true expression of your faith, whom can you fear?

Life is like a cup of tea, the sugar is all at the bottom!

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace.

I know not why there is such a melancholy feeling attached to the remembrance of past happiness, except that we fear that the future can have nothing so bright as the past.

Beneath all differences of doctrine or discipline there exists a fundamental agreement as to the simple, absolute essentials in religion.

It is not good for beauty that it should be a profession.

Hope died as I was led unto my marriage bed.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave, He is wisdom to the mighty, he is succour to the brave, So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave, Our God is marching on.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: / He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored ...

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

All the sugar was in the bottom of the cup.

It is always legitimate to wish to rise above one's self, never above others.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.

Massachusetts women as a rule adhere too strongly to old-time conventions.

The greatest evils of society are goods that have refused to go on, but have sat down on the highway, saying to the world, We stop here; do you stop also.

When the unwelcome little unborn shall have seen the light my brain will be lightened, and I shall have a clearer mind. Thank God that even this weary nine months shall come to an end and leave me in possession of my own body and my own soul.

It has been strange to me to return to life and to feel that I have any sympathy with human beings, after the long interval of quiet and indifference which succeeded my marriage.

Theology in general seems to me a substitution of human ingenuity for divine wisdom.

When I see the elaborate study and ingenuity displayed by women in the pursuit of trifles, I feel no doubt of their capacity for the most herculean undertakings.

Every life has its actual blanks, which the ideal must fill up, or which else remain bare & profitless forever.

I want to take the word Christianity back to Christ himself, back to that mighty heart whose pulse seems to throb through the world to-day, that endless fountain of charity out of which I believe has come all true progress and all civilization that deserves the name .. I go back to that great Spirit which contemplated a sacrifice for the whole of humanity. That sacrifice is not one of exclusion, but of an infinite and endless and joyous inclusion. And I thank God for it.

Don't you think that the best things are already in view?

Heaven knows what I have not been through with, since I saw you-dust, dirt, dyspepsia, hotels, railroads, prairies, tobacco juice.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
 all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

The language of the face is not taught by the schools; it is intuitive, and to the observant is always legible.

I take refuge in my books.

The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed,
Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed:
'T was red with the blood of freemen and white with the fear of the foe;
And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols know.

Boston is an oasis in the desert, a place where the larger proportion of people are loving, rational and happy.

I shall stick to my resolution of writing always what I think no matter whom it offends.

I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps, I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His Day is marching on.

Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of mind.

The frozen ocean ... of Boston life.

Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.