Lydia Sigourney Quotes

• Mothers, whatever you wish your children to become, strive to exhibit in your own lives and conversation.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Children, Inspiration, Parenting

  "Letters to mothers".

  47 Copy quote

• In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry or idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Children, Evil, Childhood

  15 Copy quote

• We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us?

  Lydia Sigourney

  Children, Speak, Educate

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1838). “Letters to mothers”, p.19

  17 Copy quote

• The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well ordered homes of the people.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Home, Intelligent, People

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1838). “Letters to Young Ladies”, p.75

  15 Copy quote

• Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  10 Copy quote

• Pride is a fruitful source of uneasiness. It keeps the mind in disquiet. Humility is the antidote to this evil.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Humility, Pride, Evil

  10 Copy quote

• A disposition to dwell on the bright side...is like gold to its possessor.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Gratitude, Gold, Sides

  4 Copy quote

• Life has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual antidote. The gloomy soul aggravates misfortune, while a cheerful smile often dispels those mists that portend a storm.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Gratitude, Cheer, Powerful

  9 Copy quote

• The true order of learning should be first, what is necessary; second, what is useful, and third, what is ornamental. To reverse this arrangement is like beginning to build at the top of the edifice.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Learning, Science, Order

  7 Copy quote

• The soul of woman lives in love.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Love, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• Not on the outer world For inward joy depend; Enjoy the luxury of thought, Make thine own self friend; Not with the restless throng, In search of solace roam But with an independent zeal Be intimate at home.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Independent, Home, Self

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1860). “Gleanings”, p.208

  5 Copy quote

• There must be some mixture of happiness in everything but sin.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Happiness, Mixtures, Sin

  7 Copy quote

• Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the spider, trembling at every breeze, may in the end prove as links of tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or woe.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Spiders, Steel, Links

  9 Copy quote

• Prosperity, alas! is often but another name for pride.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Pride, Names, Prosperity

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1838). “Select poems”, p.141

  4 Copy quote

• As nothing truly valuable can be attained without industry, so there can be no persevering industry without a deep sense of the value of time.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Time, Valuable, Industry

  7 Copy quote

• Admitting that it is the profession of our sex to teach, we perceive the mother to be first in point of precedence, in degree of power, in the faculty of teaching, and in the department allotted. For in point of precedence she is next to the Creator, in power over her pupil, limitless and without competitor.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Education, Mother, Sex

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1845). “Letters to Mothers”, p.16

  6 Copy quote

• Ye say they all have passed away, That noble race and brave; That their light canoes have vanished From off the crested wave; That mid the forests where they roamed There rings no hunter's shout; But their name is on your waters; Ye may not wash it out.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Race, Names, Light

  Lydia Sigourney (2008). “Lydia Sigourney: Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.149, Broadview Press

  4 Copy quote

• The glorified spirit of the infant is as a star to guide the mother to its own blissful clime.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Mother, Stars, Children

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1838). “Letters to mothers”, p.206

  9 Copy quote

• There is a lore simple and sure, that asks no discipline of weary years--the language of the soul, told through the eye.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Eye, Simple, Years

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1854). “The western home: and other poems”, p.185

  4 Copy quote

• Praise to our Father-God,
  High praise in solemn lay,
  Alike for what His hand hath given,
  And what it takes away.

  Lydia Sigourney

  God, Father, Hands

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1841). “Pocahontas, and Other Poems”, p.94

  4 Copy quote

• Youth would be too happy, might it add to its own beauty and felicity the wisdom and experience of riper years. Were it possible for it to realize the worth of time, as life's receding hours reveal it, how rapidly would it press on towards perfection!

  Lydia Sigourney

  Years, Perfection, Would Be

  4 Copy quote

• An appearance of delicacy is inseparable from sweetness and gentleness of character.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Character, Delicacy, Appearance

  4 Copy quote

• Something will be gathered from the tablets of the most faultless day for regrets.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Regret, Tablets

  6 Copy quote

• As a dedicated, successful writer, Lydia Sigourney violated essential elements of the very gender roles she celebrated. In the process, she offered young, aspiring women writers around the country an example of the possibilities of achieving both fame and economic reward.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Country, Successful, Roles

  "Work, Domesticity and Localism: Women's Public Identity in Nineteenth-Century Hartford, Connecticut". Book by Melissa Ladd Teed, 1999.

  4 Copy quote

• Vigorous exercise will often fortify a feeble constitution.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Exercise, Constitution, Vigorous

  4 Copy quote

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