I must study alone, as I am condemned to do every thing alone, I believe, in this life.
— Dorothea Dix
I shall try and effect all that is before me to perform; and God, I think, will surely give me strength for His work so long as He directs my line of duty.
Why not, when it can be done without exposure or expense, let me rescue some of America's miserable children from vice and guilt?
What greater bliss than to look back on days spent in usefulness, in doing good to those around us.
That statesman is indeed happy who can count as his friends the really honest and consistent, the true Patriots, and the men of honorable thought.
I have had so much at heart. Defeated, not conquered; disappointed, not discouraged. I have but to be more energetic and more faithful in the difficult and painful vocation to which my life is devoted.
We are not sent into this world mainly to enjoy the loveliness therein, nor to sit us down in passive ease; no, we were sent here for action. The soul that seeks to do the will of God with a pure heart, fervently, does not yield to the lethargy of ease.
I have little taste for fashionable dissipations, cards, and dancing; the theatre and tea parties are my aversion, and I look with little envy on those who find their enjoyment in such transitory delights, if delights they may be called.
Happy are those who dwell apart from the harrowing tumults of public life!
'Know,' says a wise writer, the historian of kings, 'Know the men that are to be trusted'; but how is this to be? The possession of knowledge involves both time and opportunities. Neither of these are 'handservants at command.'
The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.
