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Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings
Passionate and iconoclastic, these 80 articles and essays represent Ueland's entirely original view of the moral, social, and political issues of Midwestern, and American life. "Her personality leaps off the page in all its quirky intensity."-- Wilson Library Bulletin
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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132 people want to read
About the author
Brenda Ueland
30 books129 followersBrenda Ueland was a journalist, editor, freelance writer, and teacher of writing. She is best known for her book If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit.
Ueland was born to Andreas and Clara Hampson Ueland; the third of seven children. She attended Wells and Barnard colleges and received her baccalaureate from Barnard in 1913. She lived in and around New York City for much of her adult life before returning to Minnesota in 1930.
Ueland was raised in a relatively progressive household; her father, an immigrant from Norway, was a prominent lawyer and judge. Her mother was a suffragette and served as the first president of the Minnesota League of Women Voters. Ueland would spend her life as a staunch feminist and is said to have lived by two rules: To tell the truth, and to not do anything she didn't want to.
Ueland was born to Andreas and Clara Hampson Ueland; the third of seven children. She attended Wells and Barnard colleges and received her baccalaureate from Barnard in 1913. She lived in and around New York City for much of her adult life before returning to Minnesota in 1930.
Ueland was raised in a relatively progressive household; her father, an immigrant from Norway, was a prominent lawyer and judge. Her mother was a suffragette and served as the first president of the Minnesota League of Women Voters. Ueland would spend her life as a staunch feminist and is said to have lived by two rules: To tell the truth, and to not do anything she didn't want to.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 30, 2018
A heart-strengthening volume, I liked this introduction to Brenda Ueland. As she might say: Charge!
Courage, daring, honour, truthfulness - Brenda Ueland fiercely espoused chivalric ideals.
Her highest praise is to compare someone to a knight. Courage is the greatest quality of all.
To change oneself or the world for the better requires two things: 1. A continuing vigorous restlessness of the intellect and the imagination and 2. A continuing jovial courage.
We must try to find our True Conscience, our True Self, the very Center, for this is the only first-rate choice-making center. Here lies all originality, talent, honour, truthfulness, courage, and cheerfulness. Here only lies the ability to choose the good and the grand, the true and the beautiful.
She did not think this True Self was stodgy, puritanical, or self-denying.
Now in making choices, never be grim. Think of life as a river, a smooth-flowing, golden Heraclitean river. Know that you will make dreadful mistakes with almost every choice. Hurrah! Congratulate yourself for making daring, honourable ridiculous mistakes.
Since I was six years old, I have felt nothing but indignation and contempt for hunters and sportsmen. In ‘Bullfighting and Rodeo Riders,’ she concludes stingingly: Perhaps the most angering thing in these exhibitions -- man cruelly conquering beast -- is the entire absence of fairness, of chivalry, of knightliness, of grandeur, of grace, of noblesse oblige.
She is an unabashed optimist, which she defines as someone with a cheerful, flexible, liquid, open, bouncy mind.
She saw men somehow allied with Science, which she hated, feeling it was opposed to “the good and the grand.” She dismissed scientists as “gross literalists,” … mere “measurers collecting rocks on the moon.”
Perhaps that is one reason that men as they grow older are so much less interesting and so much less fun than women, for men tend to become “emotionally arthritic, rheumatic in all their emotional joints.” She writes in “Tell Me More” about the importance of listening, and evokes a haunting picture of men who have lost this ability. “This non-listening of able men is the cause of one of the saddest things in the world -- the loneliness of fathers, of those quietly sad men who move among their grown children like ghosts.”
“Don’t be grim! Be careless, reckless, Be a lion, be a pirate! Be a knight!”
Her own 2 commandments: No Cruelty. And no Lying.
A British officer once said: There are only 2 kinds of people in the world, the Kind and the Insane. Whenever we are unkind we are insane.
Si volumus non redire, currendum est. If we wish not to go backwards, we must run - Pelagius
Courage, daring, honour, truthfulness - Brenda Ueland fiercely espoused chivalric ideals.
Her highest praise is to compare someone to a knight. Courage is the greatest quality of all.
To change oneself or the world for the better requires two things: 1. A continuing vigorous restlessness of the intellect and the imagination and 2. A continuing jovial courage.
We must try to find our True Conscience, our True Self, the very Center, for this is the only first-rate choice-making center. Here lies all originality, talent, honour, truthfulness, courage, and cheerfulness. Here only lies the ability to choose the good and the grand, the true and the beautiful.
She did not think this True Self was stodgy, puritanical, or self-denying.
Now in making choices, never be grim. Think of life as a river, a smooth-flowing, golden Heraclitean river. Know that you will make dreadful mistakes with almost every choice. Hurrah! Congratulate yourself for making daring, honourable ridiculous mistakes.
Since I was six years old, I have felt nothing but indignation and contempt for hunters and sportsmen. In ‘Bullfighting and Rodeo Riders,’ she concludes stingingly: Perhaps the most angering thing in these exhibitions -- man cruelly conquering beast -- is the entire absence of fairness, of chivalry, of knightliness, of grandeur, of grace, of noblesse oblige.
She is an unabashed optimist, which she defines as someone with a cheerful, flexible, liquid, open, bouncy mind.
She saw men somehow allied with Science, which she hated, feeling it was opposed to “the good and the grand.” She dismissed scientists as “gross literalists,” … mere “measurers collecting rocks on the moon.”
Perhaps that is one reason that men as they grow older are so much less interesting and so much less fun than women, for men tend to become “emotionally arthritic, rheumatic in all their emotional joints.” She writes in “Tell Me More” about the importance of listening, and evokes a haunting picture of men who have lost this ability. “This non-listening of able men is the cause of one of the saddest things in the world -- the loneliness of fathers, of those quietly sad men who move among their grown children like ghosts.”
“Don’t be grim! Be careless, reckless, Be a lion, be a pirate! Be a knight!”
Her own 2 commandments: No Cruelty. And no Lying.
A British officer once said: There are only 2 kinds of people in the world, the Kind and the Insane. Whenever we are unkind we are insane.
Si volumus non redire, currendum est. If we wish not to go backwards, we must run - Pelagius
January 7, 2014
If you are ready to write & publish you are ready to read Brenda Ueland.
She was a salty & kind & deeply feeling news writer & essayist with great sensibilities.
Her ideas have carried me through many a writing assignment in newsrooms. Now she is my guide in writing books.
She is a also a guide in living. A life coach before the term popped up. Her columns about being with children are hilarious. She has a sure-fire way to get them to bed that is so obvious, I think half of the population should forget about having children if they aren't already following her advice.
She is a hoot & a holler. Plush she ran with a fine pack of thinkers. She wrote well into her old age.
I love this lady who wore pants when other women wore dresses, cut her hair in a bob before it was all the fashion & was so beloved by those who knew her well.
If you knew her, or know more about her, or her legacy or are just a fan like me, please say a few words to me . How did you discover BE?
Jan Godown Annino
online as Bookseedstudio
She was a salty & kind & deeply feeling news writer & essayist with great sensibilities.
Her ideas have carried me through many a writing assignment in newsrooms. Now she is my guide in writing books.
She is a also a guide in living. A life coach before the term popped up. Her columns about being with children are hilarious. She has a sure-fire way to get them to bed that is so obvious, I think half of the population should forget about having children if they aren't already following her advice.
She is a hoot & a holler. Plush she ran with a fine pack of thinkers. She wrote well into her old age.
I love this lady who wore pants when other women wore dresses, cut her hair in a bob before it was all the fashion & was so beloved by those who knew her well.
If you knew her, or know more about her, or her legacy or are just a fan like me, please say a few words to me . How did you discover BE?
Jan Godown Annino
online as Bookseedstudio
September 12, 2016
Lands in what would be a 3.5 star rating, if I could give one. Ueland wrote beautifully and there are some moments of tremendous and profoundly thought-provoking prose in this collection of her newspaper columns and editorials. On the other hand, it's also kind of like having dinner with a charming, garrulous and interesting, yet somewhat annoying, companion. I'd recommend starting with one of her other books instead of this one; I think this one reads better if you're more familiar with her work. I would particularly recommend her writing if you've just transplanted to the upper Midwest (U.S.) because it definitely provides some cultural insights that may prove handy.
August 11, 2011
Oh man, this lady. I found her "If You Want to Write" purely by chance, years ago, and have read it probably half a dozen times since. She is one of those ladies who make you feel the whole world is great and green, and that it is your duty to be as joyful in it as you possibly can be.
This book turned up also purely by chance, in the Cure on 12th Street the other day, when I stopped out of terror I'd finish the book I was reading before the train got me home. What an ugly cover they put on it. What a brilliant wonderful book. What a great green world.
This book turned up also purely by chance, in the Cure on 12th Street the other day, when I stopped out of terror I'd finish the book I was reading before the train got me home. What an ugly cover they put on it. What a brilliant wonderful book. What a great green world.
November 21, 2009
I happened upon an excerpt from this book while having a study break in grad school and loved her straightforward and confident style. Her writings were inspiring to me and have settled comfortably in the back of my mind, urging me to have strength when things get particularly tough or challenging.
March 4, 2014
A collection of essays, mostly journalism, some of which are quite dated but others are real gems. Particularly powerful is the piece on "listening as an act of love". A true second-wave feminist, freethinking Unitarian!
October 5, 2008
Some parts may seem old-fashione, but her voice is charming and her courage comes through in every line.
May 11, 2009
This book is awesome. Brief writings in the Mpls StarTribune from over the years. She congenitally lacks the herd instinct.
August 29, 2016
Crucial for writers.
January 22, 2020
I have read Brenda’s books “If You Want to Write” and her autobiography, “Me” and loved them dearly. They have so much spirit and fire all due to their spirited and fiery author. I was desperate for any more of Brenda’s written material and wanted to further my own personal research so I read this collection of selected undated articles and tid bits that she wrote throughout her life. The book felt like going through her old papers and trying to put pieces together. I enjoyed the compilation because I am so invested in Brenda Ueland and grateful to read any of her work, but to anyone who isn’t wanting a deeper understanding and friendship with the writer, I’m not sure the book would be very interesting to you.
February 13, 2023
Ueland is a drove, a full battalion in a single woman, and her words are likewise a ranked and disorder-order of a host. It is a delight just to wander beside her, as she happens upon new thoughts and drives them home, or shuffles them sideways to get to the next. The image of battalion is good, because she really is very disorderly in her order, like an army.
She mostly happens upon truth after truth. Probably because she walks daily and at length, she thinks clearly and at length. She should have a full 5-star review, except for her heart-breaking flippant fol-de-rol about abortion. She must have forgotten to walk her thoughts and hearts out on that one.
For reflections, for walks-in-words, for a woman's voice that is distinctly an unerringly her own -- read.
She mostly happens upon truth after truth. Probably because she walks daily and at length, she thinks clearly and at length. She should have a full 5-star review, except for her heart-breaking flippant fol-de-rol about abortion. She must have forgotten to walk her thoughts and hearts out on that one.
For reflections, for walks-in-words, for a woman's voice that is distinctly an unerringly her own -- read.
Read
May 9, 2008An old warrior, and some of these essays are dated. But the spirit, the fire is still there...for the reading!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews