Rebecca Harding Davis Quotes (8 Quotes)

One sees that dead, vacant look steal over the rarest, finest of women's faces . . . in the very midst, it may be, of their warmest summer's day and then one can guess at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces . . .

Nowhere in this country, from sea to sea, does nature comfort us with such assurance of plenty, such rich and tranquil beauty as in those unsung, unpainted hill 5 of Pennsylvania.

Be just -- not like man's law, which seizes on one isolated fact, but like God's judging angel, whose clear, sad eye saw all the countless cankering days of this man,s life. . ..

North and South were equally confident that God was on their side, and appealed incessantly to Him.

Reform is born of need, not pity. No vital movement of the people has worked down, for good or evil fermented, instead, carried up the heaving, cloggy mass.

Young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which . . . develops patriotism and courage. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul.

While the light burning within may have been divine, the outer case of the lamp was assuredly cheap enough. Whitman was, from first to last, a boorish, awkward poseur.

These great turning-days of life cast no shadow before, slip by unconsciously. Only a trifle, a little turn of the rudder, and the ship goes to heaven or hell.