Kate Douglas Wiggin Quotes

It is very funny, but you do not always have to see people to love them. Just think about it, and see if it isn't so.

Nancy was more impulsive than industrious, more generous than wise, more plucky than prudent; she had none too much perseverance and no patience at all.

You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often as his vices that make him difficult to live with.

No whimpering, madam! You can't have the joys of motherhood without some of its pangs! Think of your blessings, and don't be a coward! -

You can never prove God; you can only find Him!

Having learned the trick of beating and loving and suffering, the poor faithful heart persisted, although it lived on memories and carried on its sentimental operations mostly in secret.

To let blessed babies go dangling and dawdling without names, for months and months, was enough to ruin them for life.

There are certain narrow, umimaginative, and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children.

Rebecca's eyes were like faith, - "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Under her delicately etched brows they glowed like two stars, their dancing lights half hidden in lustrous darkness. Their glance was eager and full of interest, yet never satisfied; their steadfast gaze was brilliant and mysterious, and had the effect of looking directly through the obvious to something beyond, in the object, in the landscape, in you. They had never been accounted for, Rebecca's eyes. The school teacher and the minister at Temperance had tried and failed; the young artist who came for the summer to sketch the red barn, the ruined mill, and the bridge ended by giving up all these local beauties and devoting herself to the face of a child, - a small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying such messages, such suggestions, such hints of sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of looking into their shining depths, nor of fancying that what one saw there was the reflection of one's own thought.

There is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humor as selling tickets behind a grating ...

Hugh refused to leave the scene of the action. He seated himself on the top stair in the hall, banged his head against the railing a few times, just by way of uncorking the vials of his wrath, and then subsided into gloomy silence, waiting to declare war if more "first girl babies" were thrust upon a family already surfeited with that unnecessary article.

To make my diary a little different I am going to call it a Thought Book ... I have thoughts that I never can use unlesss I write them down, for Aunt Miranda always says, Keep your thoughts to yourself.

Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood.

There are some who possess the magic touch, the infectious spirit of enthusiasm; who have the same effect as a beautiful morning that never reaches noon. Under this spell one's mind is braced, one's spirit recreated; one is ready for any adventure, even if it only be the doing of the next distasteful task light-heartedly.

Yes, Mr. Popham is a Methodist and I'm a Congregationalist, but I say let the children go where they like, so I always take them with me.

Maternal love, like an orange tree, buds and blossoms and bears at once. When a woman puts her finger for the first time into the tiny hand of her baby and feels that helpless clutch which tightens her very heartstrings, she is born again with her newborn child.

Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong.

Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk?

There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.

We'll never speak of 'last times,' Gilly, or where would any of us be? We'll always think of 'next' times. I shall trust Nancy next time, and next time and next time, and keep on trusting till I can trust her forever!

"And all the bars at which we fret, That seem to prison and control, Are but the doors of daring set Ajar before the soul.

You seem to have an uncommon knowledge of young people. May I ask if you are, or have been, a teacher?" "Oh, no!" Mrs. Carey remarked with a smile, "I am just a mother,
that's all! Good night.

Some folks mistakes all they see for all there is.

If I haven't anything to write, I am just as anxious to 'take my pen in hand' as though I had a message to deliver, a cause to plead, or a problem to unfold. Nothing but writing rests me; only then do I seem completely myself!

It was not long after sunrise, and Stephen Waterman, fresh from his dip in the river, had scrambled up the hillside from the hut in the alder-bushes where he had made his morning toilet.

One cannot see callers, answer the telephone, go to luncheons or dinners, visit the dentist or shoemaker, address charitable organizations in or from a bed; therefore a bed, in my experience, is simply bristling with ideas.

The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or the inspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for a season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you should bear thistles.

As a matter of fact it required only a tolerable show of virtue for Peter to win encomiums at any time. He would brush his curly mop of hair away from his forehead, lift his eyes, part his lips, showing a row of tiny white teeth; then a dimple would appear in each cheek and a seraphic expression (wholly at variance with the facts) would overspread the baby face, whereupon the beholder ... would cry "Angel boy!" and kiss him. He was even kissed now, though he had done nothing at all but exist and be an enchanting personage, which is one of the injustices of a world where a large number of virtuous and well-behaved people go unkissed to their graves!

Lord, I do not ask that Thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.

I am not wise enough to say how much of all this squalor and wretchedness and hunger is the fault of the people themselves, how much of it belongs to circumstances and environment, how much is the result of past errors of government, how much is race, how much is religion. I only know that children should never be hungry, that there are ignorant human creatures to be taught how to live; and if it is a hard task, the sooner it is begun the better, both for teachers and pupils. It is comparatively easy to form opinions and devise remedies, when one knows the absolute truth of things; but it is so difficult to find the truth here, or at least there are so many and such different truths to weigh in the balance ...

Oh, Kathleen!" sighed Nancy as the two went into the kitchen together. "Isn't mother the most interesting 'scolder' you ever listened to? I love to hear her do it, especially when somebody else is getting it. When it's I, I grow smaller and smaller, curling myself up like a little worm. Then when she has finished I squirm to the door and wriggle out. Other mothers say: 'If you don't, I shall tell your father!' 'Do as I tell you, and ask no questions.' 'I never heard of such behavior in my life!' 'Haven't you any sense of propriety?' 'If this happens again I shall have to do something desperate.' 'Leave the room at once,' and so on; but mother sets you to thinking."
"Mother doesn't really scold," Kathleen objected.
"No, but she shows you how wrong you are, just the same ...