Quotes by Elizabeth Phelps

• Surely it is one of the simplest laws of taste in dress, that it shall not attract undue attention from the wearer to the worn.
• What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motion of a person, define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason.
• A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.
• Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.
• It is impossible to forget the sense of dignity which marks the hour when one becomes a wage-earner... I felt that I had suddenly acquired value to myself, to my family, and to the world.
• It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better.
• Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful, the formation of fixed habits of work.