Quotes from Dorothea Dix

They say, 'Nothing can be done here!' I reply, 'I know no such word in the vocabulary I adopt!'

I have had so much at heart. Defeated, not conquered; disappointed, not discouraged. I have but to be more energetic and more faithful in the difficult and painful vocation to which my life is devoted.

With care and patience, people may accomplish things which, to an indolent person, would appear impossible.

No blessing, no good, can follow in the path trodden by slavery.

Life is not to be expended in vain regrets. No day, no hour, comes but brings in its train work to be performed for some useful end - the suffering to be comforted, the wandering led home, the sinner reclaimed. Oh! How can any fold the hands to rest and say to the spirit, 'Take thine ease, for all is well!'

I shall try and effect all that is before me to perform; and God, I think, will surely give me strength for His work so long as He directs my line of duty.

The olive branch has been consecrated to peace, palm branches to victory, the laurel to conquest and poetry, the myrtle to love and pleasure, the cypress to mourning, and the willow to despondency.

Be of good cheer, for sadness cannot heal the national wounds.

Of all the calamities to which humanity is subject, none is so dreadful as insanity. ... All experience shows that insanity seasonably treated is as certainly curable as a cold or a fever.

To me, the avocation of a teacher has something elevating and exciting. While surrounded by the young, one may always be doing good.

I shall be well enough when I get to Kentucky or Alabama. The tonic I need is the tonic of opposition. That always sets me on my feet.

Of my English friends, I should find language too poor to speak the just praise and the excellence which shines in their characters and lives.

Men need knowledge in order to overpower their passions and master their prejudices.

The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.

The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible.

Attention to any subject will in a short time render it attractive, be it ever so disagreeable and tedious at first.

Why not, when it can be done without exposure or expense, let me rescue some of America's miserable children from vice and guilt?

Happy are those who dwell apart from the harrowing tumults of public life!

If we had only those things which are procured with ease and freedom from danger, we should find the comforts and luxuries, if not many of the necessaries of life, considerably diminished.

In order to do good, a man must be good; and he will not be good except he have instruction by counsel and by example.

Pleasures take to themselves wings and fly away; true knowledge remains forever.

Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character, and then he is never made radically better for its influence.

My wish is to be known only thru my work.

I would be cautious in embracing or rejecting doctrines. Had they been essential to our salvation, they would have been more explicitly declared in the Gospels, where we are so well taught the practice of every good word and work.