First Lines
Things to Live For
By appearance in text
Chapter 1: Things that are Worth While
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He
built a house; time laid it in the dust
- Sarah K. Bolton
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Only
a thought, but the work it wrought
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A
flash! You came into my life
- ‘One’ writes of a friend
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How
to make lives worthy the living
- Lucy Larcom
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Chapter 2: Seriousness of Living
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Children
of yesterday
- Mary A Lathbury
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I
hold it true that thoughts are things
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Chapter 3: Wholesome or Unwholesome Living
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If
I lay waste and wither up with doubt
- William Dean Howells
- What Shall It Profit?
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Through
all the tumult of this busy life
- One writes
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Work
for some good, be it ever so slowly
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Chapter 4: Duty of being Strong
- I
asked for strength; for with the noontide heat
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- In
the old days God sent his angels oft
- Mrs. Sangster
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- Lord,
what a change within us one short hour
- Richard C. Trench
Lord, what a change within us
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- I
said, This task is keen
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Chapter 5: The Blessing of Simple Goodness
- It
is not the deed we do
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- No
good is certain but the steadfast mind
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- Flowers
preach to us, if we will hear
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- A
nameless man, amid a crowd
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Chapter 6: Living Up to Our Privileges
- Ever
toward man‘s height of nobleness
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- All
empty handed came I in; full handed forth I go
- One writes
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- Half
a mile on, a sudden song
- One writes
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- Something
I may not win attracts me ever
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Chapter 7: The Lesson of Service
- We
can best minister to Him by helping them
- Lucy Larcom
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- If
I had dwelt”—so mused a tender woman
- Mrs. Margaret E. Preston
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- Lord,
make us all love all, that when we meet
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Chapter 8: The Grace of Thoughtfulness
- In
life—not death
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- Not
unto every heart is God‘s good gift
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- I
might have said a word of cheer
- Marion Harland
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Chapter 9: The Seeds We are Scattering
- I
dropped a seed beside a path
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- I
dropped a sympathetic word
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- There
is no wrong, by any one committed
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- Sow
a thought, and you will reap an act
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Chapter 10: Knowledge and Love
- Knowledge,
when wisdom is too weak to guide her
- Quarles
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- Turned
wearily to bed
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- If
sudden to mine eyes, joy dazzled bliss!
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Chapter 11: Dangers of Discouragement
- Between
our hope, which shines afar
- Bruce Whitney
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- For
though the fig tree shall not blossom
- An old Hebrew prophet
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- God‘s
in his heaven
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Chapter 12: Talking About One’s Self
- Love
thyself last; and thou shalt grow inspirit
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- Let
another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth
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Chapter 13: Why Did You Fail
- In
life‘s small things be resolute and great
- Quoted by Lowell
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- God
help us through the common days
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Chapter 14: Passing By On the Other Side
- Who
fain would help in this world of ours
- Margaret E. Sangster
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- If
you were toiling up a weary hill
- Susan Coolidge
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- Long,
long centuries
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- We
go our ways in life too much alone
- one writes
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Chapter 15: Over Waiting for God
- Dig
channels for the streams of Love
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Chapter 16: The Only Safe Committal
- We
see not, know not; all our way
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- Into
thine hand I commend my spirit:
- Psalm 31:5
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- A
broken song—it had dropped apart
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- We
are quite sure
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Chapter 17: The Beatitude for Sorrow
- God
never would send you the darkness
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- Life,
like a dome of many colored glass
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- Life,
like a dome of many colored glass
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- I
heard an old farmer talk one day
- Quoted by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
- In Springs in the Valley originally published 1925—
13 years after Miller‘s death.
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Chapter 18: Blessings of Bereavement
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past is always holy—every heart
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- The
past is always holy—every heart
- Mrs. Browning
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- Let
me come in where you sit weeping, — ay
- James Whitcomb Riley
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- Because
of one small, low laid head all crowned
- Mrs. Paull
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Chapter 19: How They Stay With Us
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close heaven lies that when my sight is clear
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- They
never quite leave us, our friends who have passed
- Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster
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- I
dreamed of Paradise — and still
- Rev. W.C. Gannet
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- And
yet, dear heart, remembering thee
- Whittier has written in “Snowbound:”
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Chapter 20: The Hallowing of Our Burden
- Give
me the grace to bear my burden so
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- Who
is this that cometh in the Lord‘s dear name?
- Susan Coolidge
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- To
every one on earth
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Chapter 21: The Cost of Helpfulness
- Christ
gave all rest, and had no resting place;
- Countess of Pembroke
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- Perhaps
you have heard of the method strange
- One writes
- As
the mighty poets take
- One writes
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Chapter 22: Loving and Hating One’s Life
- Pour
out thy love like the rush of a rive
- Rose Terry Cooke
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- If
I should come to high renown,
- One has written
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- If
you sit down at set of sun
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- Wherever
through the ages rise
- Whittier
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Chapter 23: Taking God into Counsel
- I
will commit my way, O Lord, to thee
- Mary A Lathbury
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- He
chose this path for thee
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- The
fever went at the turn of the night
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Chapter 24: This Life and the After Life
- I
cannot make it seem a day to dread
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- Faithful
friends! It lies, I know
- Sir Edwin Arnold’s on the death of Abdallah
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- I
go to prove my soul!
- Robert Browning
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- But
the sunbeam would not linger
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