Surely it is one of the requisites of a tasteful garb that the expression of effort to please shall be wanting in it; that the mysteries of the toilet shall not be suggested by it; that the steps to its completion shall be knocked away like the sculptor's ladder from the statue, and the mental force expended upon it be swept away out of sight like the chips on the studio floor.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps WardIt 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.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps WardIt 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.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps WardIt is not in our drawing-rooms that we should look to judge of the intrinsic worth of any style of dress. The street-car is a truer crucible of its inherent value.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward... when one reflects on the books one never has written, and never may, though their schedules lie in the beautiful chirography which marks the inception of an unexpressed thought upon the pages of one's notebook, one is aware, of any given idea, that the chances are against its ever being offered to one's dearest readers.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward