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How fitting to have every day, in a vase of water on your table, the wild flowers of the season which are just blossoming. Can any house be said to be furnished without them? Shall we be so forward to pluck the fruits of Nature and neglect her flowers? These are surely her finest influences. So may the season suggest the thoughts it is fitted to suggest. ..... Let me know what pictures Nature is painting, what poetry she is writing, what ode composing now.

-Thoreau.

DAFFODILS.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,-

A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee ;-
A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

--dsworth.

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted,
And royally dowered in all men's sight,
To know no rest till his life is lifted

Fully up to the great gift's height.

Great gifts should be worn like a crown befitting,
And not like gems on a beggar's hands;
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
That lifts up the king to the crown's demands.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I am one who holds a treasure
And a gem of wondrous cost;
But I mar my heart's deep pleasure
With the fear it may be lost.

Oh for some heavenly token,
By which I may be sure
The vase shall not be broken,
Dispersed the essence pure.

Then spoke the angel of mothers

To me in gentle tone,

"Be kind to the children of others,

And thus deserve thine own."

-Julia Ward Howe.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

-Joubert.

That which is not for the interest of the whole swarm is not for the interest of a single bee.

-Marcus Aurelius.

After every storm the sun will smile, for every problem there is a solution, and the soul's indefeasible duty is to be of good cheer.. -William R. Alger.

At last to be identified!

At last, the lamps upon thy side,

The rest of life to see!

Past midnight, past the morning star!
Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are

Between our feet and day!

-Emily Dickinson.

You will find it less easy to uproot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults; still less of others' faults. In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it; as you can, try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

-Ruskin.

Why make we moan

For loss that doth enrich us yet

With upward yearnings of regret.

-Lowell.

Oh world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
-Browning.

Age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress;
And, as the evening twilight fades away,
The stars are seen by night, invisible by day.
-Longfellow.

To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.

-Thoreau.

Belief in compensation, or, that nothing is got for nothing,-characterizes all valuable minds.

-Emerson.

Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day
Which from the night shall drive thy peace away.
In months of sun so live that months of rain

Shall still be happy.

(Translation.)

-Whittier,

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