Quotes from Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

God makes many poets, but he only gives utterance to a few.

our right or wrong use of money is the utmost test of character, as well as the root of happiness or misery, throughout our whole lives.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another?

A secret at home is like rocks under tide.

Ethics, as has been well said, are the finest fruits of humanity, but they are not its roots

Many true words are spoken in jest.

The life of action is nobler than the life of thought.

To accept the inevitable; neither to struggle against it nor murmur at it-this is the great lesson of life.

As we sail through life towards death, Bound unto the same port--heaven,-- Friend, what years could us divide?

Loud wind, strong wind, sweeping o'er the mountains, Fresh wind, free wind, blowing from the sea, Pour forth thy vials like streams from airy mountains, Draughts of life to me.

... what a fatal thing in pictures, books, or human lives, is a lack of proportion.

What small account The All-living seems to take of this thin flame Which we call life. He sends a moment's blast Out of war's nostrils, and a myriad Of these our puny tapers are blown out Forever.

It is the Christmas time: And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth, In glorious grief and solemn mirth, The shining angels climb.

O, the sweet, sweet twilight just before the time of rest, When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed.

It is astonishing what a lot of odd minutes one can catch during the day, if one really sets about it.

Why cannot one always do, not only the right thing, but at the right time?

O, the mulberry-tree is of trees the queen! Bare long after the rest are green; But as time steals onwards, while none perceives Slowly she clothes herself with leaves.

Be loving, and you will never want for love; be humble, and you will never want for guiding.

Our natural and happiest life is when we lose ourselves in the exquisite absorption of home, the delicious retirement of dependent love.

Love never stands still; it must inevitably be either growing or decaying - especially the love of marriage.

according to the old joke, married people are often like little boys bathing, who cry with chattering teeth to the boys on the shore, 'Do come in, it's so warm' - it is not always warm.

The wonder is not that some married people are less happy than they hoped to be, but that any married people, out of the honeymoon, or even in it, are ever happy at all.

Every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost.

A perfect marriage is as rare as a perfect love. Could it be otherwise, when both men and women are so imperfect? Could aught else be expected? Yet all do expect it.