Edwin Markham

“Fight ever on: this earthly stuff If used God’s way will be enough. Face to the firing line o friendFight out life’s battle to the end. One soldier, when the fight was red,Threw down his broken sword and fled.Another snatched it, won the day, With what his comrade flung away.”

“Big money is not a good thing for a little soul: it will only ensnare his feet, and he will fall to his ruin. Wealth is safe only for those who have a wealth of wisdom.”

“There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.”

“The open street, like the open sea, is an inviting thing to the mind of man. It is one of the few places where all may meet as equals under sun or rain; but only a John Bunyan could adequately portray the danger of the cities with their pitfalls for the young unguarded feet.”

“'Custom is the great deadener.' There is no doubt that we of the white race are going on obliviously supporting customs that would seem abhorrent and incredible to a higher and more brotherly civilization.”

“Every man on the planet should do some physical work: he should help in the bread-labor of mankind. He should also do some of the intellectual work: he should help in the thought-labor of mankind. In a word, every thinker should work, and every worker should think.”

“It is doubtless true that men are bad because they are unhappy. If anyone could give them real happiness, the happiness of brotherhood, they would all want to live the true and brotherly life.”

“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, the emptiness of ages in his face, and on his back the burden of the world.”