Lydia Maria Child was a well-known American author and abolitionist known for her antislavery works and contributions to children’s literature.
Born into an abolitionist family her education was primarily influenced by her brother a Unitarian clergyman.
In the 1820s she taught wrote historical novels and founded the children’s periodical “Juvenile Miscellany.”
After marrying editor David L. Child in 1828 she met abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and devoted her life to abolitionism.
Her best known work “An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans” (1833) was the first book to denounce the inequality faced by Black people in education and employment though it resulted in her social ostracization.
Child also edited the “National Anti-Slavery Standard” and worked with Harriet Jacobs on the publication of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” (1861).
She advocated for Indigenous peoples and wrote various advice books for women. Child’s letters were compiled in “Lydia Maria Child Selected Letters 1817–1880” (1982).
Here are some of the most powerful quotes by Lydia Child.
Best Lydia M. Child Quotes
The rarest attainment is to grow old happily and gracefully. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Birds and beasts have in fact our own nature, flattened a semi-tone. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! ~ Lydia M. Child.
An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have. ~ Lydia M. Child.
The good old home habits of our ancestors are breaking up – it will be well if our virtue and our freedom do not follow them! ~ Lydia M. Child.
Beer is a good family drink. ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child.
Love is the divine quality that everywhere produces and restores life. To each and every one of us, it gives the power of working miracles if we will. ~ Lydia M. Child.
The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement. Nature always produces individuals; She never produces classes. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Genius hath electric power; Which earth can never tame; Bright suns may scorch and dark clouds lower; Its flash is still the same. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Young ladies should be taught that usefulness is happiness, and that all other things are but incidental. ~ Lydia M. Child.
We must not forget that all great revolutions and reformations would look mean and meager if examined in detail as they occurred at the time. ~ Lydia M. Child.
I keep working because I am quite sure that no particle of goodness or truth is ever really lost, however appearances may be to the contrary. ~ Lydia M. Child.
No music is so pleasant to my ears as that word – father. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Famous Lydia M. Child Quotes
You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Those who make candles will find it a great improvement to steep the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and dry them. The flame is clearer, and the tallow will not ‘run. ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child.
The laws of our being are such that we must perform some degree of use in the world, whether we intend it, or not; but we can deprive ourselves of its indwelling joy, by acting entirely from the love of self. ~ Lydia M. Child.
But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Plantain leaves laid upon a wound are cooling and healing. ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child.
A mind full of piety and knowledge is always rich; it is a bank that never fails; it yields a perpetual dividend of happiness. In. ~ Lydia M. Child.
That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom. ~ Lydia M. Child.
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. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Top Lydia M. Child Quotes
It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Over the river and through the wood; To grandfather’s house we go. ~ Lydia M. Child.
We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate. ~ Lydia M. Child.
The civilization of any country may always be measured by the degree of equality between men and women; and society will never come truly into order until there is perfect equality and co-partnership between them in every department of human life. ~ Lydia M. Child.
In early childhood, you lay the foundation of poverty or riches, in the habits you give your children. Teach them to save everything, – not for their own use, for that would make them selfish – but for some use. Teach them to share everything with their playmates; but never allow them to destroy anything. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Neither lemonade nor anything else can prevent the inroads of old age. At present, I am stoical under its advances, and hope I shall remain so. I have but one prayer at heart; and that is, to have my faculties so far preserved that I can be useful, in some way or other, to the last. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Popular Lydia M. Child Quotes
Whoso does not see that genuine life is a battle and a march has poorly read his origin and his destiny. ~ Lydia M. Child.
None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Steam-baths are excellent for severe colds, and for some disorders in the bowels. ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child.
I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face. ~ Lydia M. Child.
So easy it is to see the errors of past ages, so difficult to acknowledge our own! ~ Lydia M. Child.
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father. ~ Lydia M. Child.
There have always been a large class of thinkers who deny that the world makes any progress. They say we move in a circle; that evils are never conquered, but only change their forms. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Prejudices of all kinds have their strongest holds in the minds of the vulgar and the ignorant. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Great Lydia M. Child Quotes
Home – that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry it thither, as on an angel’s wings. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Pillars are fallen at thy feet, Fanes quiver in the air, A prostrate city is thy seat, And thou alone art there. ~ Lydia Maria Child.
Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote, but I’ll come and rap on the ballot box. ~ Lydia M. Child.
A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Philosophy and the arts are but a manifestation of the intelligible ideas that move the public mind; and thus they become visible images of the nations whence they emanate. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Even if nothing worse than wasted mental effort could be laid to the charge of theology, that alone ought to be sufficient to banish it from the earth, as one of the worst enemies of mankind. ~ Lydia M. Child.
The old men gazed on them in their loveliness, and turned away with that deep and painful sigh, which the gladness of childhood, and the transient beauty of youth, are so apt to awaken in the bosom of the aged. ~ Lydia M. Child.
There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theater, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface. ~ Lydia M. Child.
England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. ~ Lydia M. Child.
A human heart can never grow old if it takes a lively interest in the pairing of birds, the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of autumn leaves. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Insightful Lydia M. Child Quotes
Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles. ~ Lydia M. Child.
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. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame. ~ Lydia M. Child.
I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Yours for the unshackled exercise of every faculty by every human being. ~ Lydia M. Child.
It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong; the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil can be overcome by physical means. ~ Lydia M. Child.
Ah, my friend, that is the only true church organization, when heads and hearts unite in working for the welfare of the human race! ~ Lydia M. Child.
The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos. ~ Lydia M. Child.
So these were the 63 top Lydia Maria Francis Child quotes and sayings.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Louisa May Alcott quotes and Ludwig von Mises quotes.
