Alice Cary Quotes

• There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
  And nothing so royal as truth.

  Alice Cary

  Kindness, Royal

  Alice Cary (1876). “The Last Poems: Of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.72

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• Every life is meant to help all lives; each man should live for all men's betterment.

  Alice Cary

  Men, Helping, Life Is

  Alice Cary (1866). “Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns”, p.304

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• Even for the dead I will not bind my soul to grief, death cannot long divide; for is it not as if the rose that climbed my garden wall had bloomed the other side?

  Alice Cary

  Wall, Grief, Garden

  alice cary (1855). “poems”, p.283

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• How many lives we live in one,
  And how much less than one, in all.

  Alice Cary

  Life, Art, Philosophy

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.173

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• True worth is in being, not seeming- In doing, each day that goes by, Some little good, not in the dreaming Of great things to do by and by. For whatever men say in their blindness, And spite of the fancies of youth, There's nothing so kingly as kindness, And nothing so royal as truth.

  Alice Cary

  Dream, Kindness, Men

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.176

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• Nothing in this low and ruined world bears the meek impress of the Son of God so surely as forgiveness.

  Alice Cary

  Son, World, Bears

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• True worth is in being, not seeming

  Alice Cary

  Seeming, True Worth

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.174

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• Shut up the door: who loves me must not look / Upon the withered world, but haste to bring / His lighted candle, and his story-book, / And live with me the poetry of spring.

  Alice Cary

  Spring, Book, Autumn

  Alice Cary (1876). “The Last Poems: Of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.136

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• My soul is full of whispered song,-My blindness is my sight;The shadows that I feared so longAre full of life and light.

  Alice Cary

  Song, Light, Sight

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• He who loves best his fellow-man, is loving God the holiest way he can.

  Alice Cary

  Love, Men, Fellow Man

  Alice Cary (1866). “Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns”, p.73

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• The fisher droppeth his net in the stream, And a hundred streams are the same as one; And the maiden dreameth her love-lit dream; And what is it all, when all is done? The net of the fisher the burden breaks, And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.

  Alice Cary

  Dream, Done, Burden

  Mary Clemmer, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary (1873). “A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary: With Some of Their Later Poems”, p.122

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• I hold that a man had better be dead than alive when his work is done.

  Alice Cary

  Work, Men, Done

  Alice Cary (1866). “Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns”, p.227

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• With hand on the spade and heart in the sky Dress the ground and till it; Turn in the little seed, brown and dry, Turn out the golden millet. Work, and your house shall be duly fed: Work, and rest shall be won; I hold that a man had better be dead Than alive when his work is done.

  Alice Cary

  Work, Heart, Men

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.164

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• Coldly and capriciously the slanting sunbeams fall.

  Alice Cary

  Fall, Winter, Sunbeams

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary (1850). “Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey ...”, p.69

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• I sit where the leaves of the maple and the gnarled and knotted gum are circling and drifting around me.

  Alice Cary

  Gum, Drifting, Maple

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary (1850). “Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey ...”, p.140

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• Yea, when mortality dissolves, Shall I not meet thine hour unawed? My house eternal in the heavens Is lighted by the smile of God!

  Alice Cary

  House, Heaven, Hours

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• Not what we think, but what we do, / Makes saints of us: all stiff and cold, / The outlines of the corpse show through / The cloth of gold.

  Alice Cary

  Thinking, Gold, Saint

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.164

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• There must be room for penitence to mend Life's broken chance;
  else noise of wars would unmake heaven.

  Alice Cary

  War, Broken, Heaven

  Mary Clemmer, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary (1873). “A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary: With Some of Their Later Poems”, p.95

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• We serve Him most who take the most of His exhaustless love.

  Alice Cary

  Alice Cary (1866). “Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns”, p.208

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• The path of duty I clearly trace, / I stand with conscience face to face, / And all her pleas allow; / Calling and crying the while for grace, - / 'Some other time, and some other place; / Oh, not to-day; not now!

  Alice Cary

  Grace, Calling, Path

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.168

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• For he who is honest is noble, Whatever his fortunes or birth.

  Alice Cary

  Noble, Honest, Birth

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.176

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• The attempt is all the wedge that splits its knotty way betwixt the impossible and possible.

  Alice Cary

  Splits, Way, Action

  alice cary (1855). “poems”, p.336

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• I hold that Christian grace abounds Where charity is seen; that when We climb to heaven, 'tis on the rounds Of love to men.

  Alice Cary

  Love, Christian, Men

  Mary Clemmer, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary (1873). “A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary: With Some of Their Later Poems”, p.301

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• Desolate--Life is so dreary and desolate--
  Women and men in the crowd meet and mingle,
  Yet with itself every soul standeth single,
  Deep out of sympathy moaning its moan--
  Holding and having its brief exultation--
  Making its lonesome and low lamentation--
  Fighting its terrible conflicts alone.

  Alice Cary

  Fighting, Men, Soul

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.180

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• We cannot make bargains for blisses, / Nor catch them like fishes in nets; / And sometimes the thing our life misses, / Helps more than the thing which it gets.

  Alice Cary

  Happiness, Missing, Helping

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.176

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