Heather > Heather's Quotes

“For children, childhood is timeless. It is always the present. Everything is in the present tense. Of course, they have memories. Of course, time shifts a little for them and Christmas comes round in the end. But they don’t feel it. Today is what they feel, and when they say ‘When I grow up,’ there is always an edge of disbelief—how could they ever be other than what they are?”
― Ian McEwan, The Child in Time

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“The saints are the sinners who keep on trying.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain common work as it comes certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“You cannot run away from a weakness, you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now and where you stand?”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese--toasted mostly.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temparate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers

“An intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils".”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers

“We must go on, because we can't turn back.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“To be feared of a thing and yet to do it, is what makes the prettiest kind of a man.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

“Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwrecks.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“There are two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
― George Washington, Rules of Civiility and Other Writings & Speeches

“Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”
― George Washington

“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”
― George Washington

“A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.”
― George Washington

“Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect - We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions - The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”
― George Washington

“Real men despise battle, but will never run from it.”
― George Washington

“There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy”
― George Washington