Mary Ellen Chase Quotes

Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for it's own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one's thoughts.

Whatever laudable qualities the English may possess in their selection, preparation, and consumption of food, elegance, originality, diversity, and imagination are not among them.

It is quite possible to leave your home for a walk in the early morning air and return a different person - beguiled, enchanted.

There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.

Even one's yesterdays could not continue to stir and move in a man's mind unless there were a future for those yesterdays to make.

To lovers of the long and intricate history of language the disuse and final death of certain words is a matter of regret. Yet every age bears witness to the inevitableness of such loss.

The greatest danger in any argument is that real issues often clouded by superficial ones, that momentary passions may obscure permanent realities.

Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind.

Of all the excellent teachers of college English whom I have known I have never discovered one who knew precisely what he was doing. Therein have lain their power and their charm.

Suffering without understanding in this life is a heap worse than suffering when you have at least the grain of an idea what it's all for.