Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Perseverance | Time
Human nature is above all things lazy.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Laziness
So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Women | Youth | Beauty
In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
God | Life | Beauty
A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Fathers | America
Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Mothers | Philosophy
The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Life | The Future
It’s a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Justice
Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Pain
I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Faith | Christianity
Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Good and Evil
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Death | Bitterness
Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Laziness | Circumstances | Power
I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Books
I long to put the experience of fifty years at once into your young lives, to give you at once the key to that treasure chamber every gem of which has cost me tears and struggles and prayers, but you must work for these inward treasures yourselves.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Achievement | Struggles
Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Morality | Music
One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Achievement
All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Virtue | Women
Many a humble soul will be amazed to find that the seed it sowed in weakness, in the dust of daily life, has blossomed into immortal flowers under the eye of the Lord.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Humility | Weakness
A woman’s health is her capital.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Health
The Negro is an exotic of the most gorgeous and superb countries of the world, and he has deep in his heart a passion for all that is splendid, rich and fanciful.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Inspiration
To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Perseverance
No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Character
The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Reasoning
Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Good and Evil
Friendships are discovered rather than made.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Friendship
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Virtue