|
Lydia Maria Child, née Francis
b. 2-11-1802; Medford, MA
d. 10-20-1880; Wayland, MA
Novelist, journalist, and teacher Lydia Maria Child was an abolitionist, women's rights and Indian rights activist, and opponent of American expansionism.
Child, who wrote anti-slavery fiction, helped author Harriet Jacobs with her Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and was associated with William Lloyd Garrison. Her most remembered work is Over the River and Through the Woods is associated with the Thanksgiving holiday.
Lydia Maria Child quotes ~
• “It is my mission to help in the breaking down of classes, and to make all men feel as if they were brethren of the same family, sharing the same rights, the same capabilities, and the same responsibilities. While my hand can hold a pen, I will use it to this end; and while my brain can earn a dollar, I will devote it to this end.”
• “A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.”
• “The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.”
• “But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.”
• “Reverence is the highest quality of man's nature; and that individual, or nation, which has it slightly developed, is so far unfortunate. It is a strong spiritual instinct, and seeks to form channels for itself where none exists; thus Americans, in the dearth of other objects to worship, fall to worshiping themselves.
• “The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word ‘love.’ It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.”
• “Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.”
• “Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.”
• “Over the river and through the wood/To grandfather's house we go/The horse knows the way/To carry the sleigh/Through the white and drifted snow.” ~ Thanksgiving Day, 1845
• “Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.”
|
