You the rich are no whit more attractive or capable than you who were poor and struggling a few years back. But when before you plodded lonely and unappreciated, now the glamour of the motor and the smart apartment surrounds you with a tangible glory. It is amazing how many friends look you up, call you by name, and extol you, who were once a little timid, or indifferent, or utterly neglectful in your time of dire poverty. One has true friends when one is poor and no riches can be greater than that. They are not so obvious when one is rich.
Alice Foote MacDougallfor the poor the whole world is a self-constituted critic; your smallest action is open to debate. No secret place of your soul is safe from invasion.
Alice Foote MacDougallSuccess of life depends upon keeping one's mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes.
Alice Foote MacDougallThat is the wearisome part of business - there is no peace, no sense of certain, permanent achievement, no stability. The unexpected, and usually the awful, is forever happening.
Alice Foote MacDougallWork becomes at once a delight and a tyrant. For even when the time comes and you can relax, you hardly know how.
Alice Foote MacDougallDespising cowardice in others, I wished to prove myself no coward. Believing in the good, the gentle, the beautiful things of life, I addressed myself to the sweet duty of keeping these attributes for my children's sake and my own. And in striving to provide a living for them, I found a success beyond my wildest dreams.
Alice Foote MacDougall