Quotes from Edwin Markham

The open street, like the open sea, is an inviting thing to the mind of man. It is one of the few places where all may meet as equals under sun or rain; but only a John Bunyan could adequately portray the danger of the cities with their pitfalls for the young unguarded feet.

We have ground for believing that a noble form of socialism existed among the prehistoric and primitive people on this planet, the people that broke into restless groups after the ancient Deluge and went wandering over the globe. For we find a socialist tendency in all the barbaric tribes of earth.

In vain we build the city if we do not first build the man.

Lincoln, the Man of the People

That in the human plan nothing is worth the making if it does not make the man.

Mr. Rihani is a man of ardent poetic temperament, a clever poet, and a man of unworldly ideals.

There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.

No soul can be forever banned, Eternally bereft, Whoever falls from God's right hand Is caught into his left.

Use and beauty - these should be the ends of all human effort. But the competitive struggle swings us away from this high ground and plunges us into a quagmire fight for cheap goods and cheap labor.

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.

To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.

'Custom is the great deadener.' There is no doubt that we of the white race are going on obliviously supporting customs that would seem abhorrent and incredible to a higher and more brotherly civilization.

The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?

Few cities have been more definitely impressed upon the imagination of the world than San Francisco, this gray-hilled city on the peninsula by the hospitable bay, where Saint Francis protects the ships as he protected the birds of Assisi.

The thing that is incredible is life itself.

For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike.

He went downAs when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

He drew a circle that shut me out — heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win — and we drew a circle that took him in!

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.

By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us.

One fire was on his spirit, one resolve - To send the keen axe to the root of wrong, Clearing a free way to the feet of God, The eyes of conscience testing every stroke.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,Is this the handiwork you give to God?

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth,The smack and tang of elemental things.