Let there be many windows to your soul, that all the glory of the world may beautify it.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Light
I think of death as some delightful journey that I shall take when all my tasks are done.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Death, Dying
Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Attitude
If you are seeking health, wealth, usefulness, skill in any direction, there is nothing and no one who can hinder your attainment of the coveted boon, if you are willing to work and wait.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Usefullness
Change is the watchword of progression. When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Change
The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, the headstones thicken along the way; and life grows sadder, but love grows stronger for those who walk with us day by day.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Love
The two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Business, Inspiration, Praise
Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Adversity, Work
Give us that grand word “woman” once again, and let’s have done with “lady”; one’s a term full of fine force, strong, beautiful, and firm, fit for the noblest use of tongue or pen; and one’s a word for lackeys.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Women
One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,
Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Goals
It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song. But the man worthwhile is the one who can smile, when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Courage, Adversity, Bravery, Attitude
A weed is but an unloved flower.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Flowers
With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Consequences, Results
Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in heaven will mind it; And the finest phrase falls dead, if there is no feeling behind it.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Prayer
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Chance, Goals, Determination, Destiny, Fate, Control, Perseverance, Soul, Now
No fate could rob us of our own—
No circumstance can make it less;
What time removes was but a loan,
For what was ours we still possess.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Character
Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Laughter, Friendship, Punctuality, Sadness
You like buttercups, dewy sweet,
And crocuses, framed in snow;
I like roses, born of the heat,
And the red carnation’s glow.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Flowers
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Persistence
Let me, tonight look back across the span
Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say-
Because of some good act to beast or human-
The world is better that I lived today.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Kindness
It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Virtue
With every rising of the sun, Think of your life as just begun. The past has shrived and buried deep All yesterdays; there let them sleep. Concern yourself with but today, Woo it, and teach it to obey Your will and wish. Since time began Today has been the friend of man; But in his blindness and his sorrow, He looks to yesterday and tomorrow. You, and today! a soul sublime, And the great pregnant hour of time, With God himself to bind the twain! Go forth, I say-attain, attain! With God himself to bind the twain!
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Pregnancy
Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
There is new strength, repose of mind, and inspiration in fresh apparel.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Inspiration
Day’s sweetest moments are at dawn.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Back on its golden hinges
The gate of Memory swings,
And my heart goes into the garden
And walks with the olden things.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Memory
Whatever comes, this too shall pass away.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Time
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Kindness
The splendid discontent of God
With chaos, made the world…
And from the discontent of man
The world’s best progress springs.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Nathaniel Parker Willis American Poet, Playwright
- Emily Dickinson American Poet
- Gertrude Stein American Writer
- Theodore Roethke American Poet
- Edgar Allan Poe American Poet
- Witter Bynner American Poet
- John Vance Cheney American Poet
- John Greenleaf Whittier American Poet, Abolitionist
- Thomas Bailey Aldrich American Writer
- Celia Thaxter American Poet
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