Jean Ingelow

[T]his is a woman-ridden age. Yet it is but fair to confess that all the former ones were man-ridden ages. What we want is a happy proportion.

[U]gliness of the right sort is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty—it attracts observation and fixes the memory.

[W]e wish for more in life, rather than for more of it.

What a bore it is […] that the dull and uneducated and unimaginative should possess a dogged contempt for danger, and a kind of stupid fearlessness that we are never to have. I do not see how a highly imaginative man can have much animal …

A great many people think of religion as if it was a game that they had to play with an August Opponent—a game at which both could not win, and yet they actually think they can play it unfairly. They want to cheat. But in that grand and …

I do not know why a girl should be expected to talk well till she is at least twenty. There cannot be much in her, she may be prettily exacting, or charmingly modest, but her attractions must be personal, not intellectual.

O sleep, we are beholden to thee, sleep, Thou bearest angels to us in the night, Saints out of heaven with palms. Seen by thy light Sorrow is some old tale that goeth not deep; Love is a pouting child.

Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire— Our only greatness is that we aspire.

How short our happy days appear! How long the sorrowful!

Work is its own best earthly need, Else have we none more than the sea-born throng Who wrought these marvellous isles that bloom afar.

Like coral insects multitudinous The minutes are whereof our life is made. They build it up as in the deep's blue shade It grows, it comes to light, and then, and thus For both there is an end.

I am glad to think I am not bound to make the wrong go right; But only to discover, and to do With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.

It is a comely fashion to be glad,— Joy is the grace we say to God.

When our thoughts are born, Though they be good and humble, one should mind How they are reared, or some will go astray And shame their mother.

Learn that to love is the one way to know, Or God or man: it is not love received That maketh man to know the inner life Of them that love him; his own love bestowed Shall do it.

Man is the miracle in nature. God Is the One Miracle to man. Behold, "There is a God," thou sayest. Thou sayest well: In that thou sayest all. To Be is more Of wonderful, than being, to have wrought, Or reigned, or rested.

To bear, to nurse, to rear, To watch and then to lose: To see my bright ones disappear, Drawn up like morning dews.

Man dwells apart, though not alone, He walks among his peers unread; The best of thoughts which he hath known, For lack of listeners are not said.

And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

The while He sits whose name is Love, And waits, as Noah did, for the dove, To wit if she would fly to him.He waits for us, while, houseless things, We beat about with bruised wings On the dark floods and water-springs, The ruined world, …

Is there never a chink in the world above Where they listen for words from below?

Let me be only sure; for sooth to tell The sorest dole is doubt.

But two are walking apart forever And wave their hands for a mute farewell.

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet, Crowds of larks at their matins hang over, Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.