Top 50 Julia Ward Howe Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.”

— Julia Ward Howe

2. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord -.”

— Julia Ward Howe

3. “I shall stick to my resolution of writing always what I think no matter whom it offends.”

— Julia Ward Howe

4. “Life is like a cup of tea, the sugar is all at the bottom!”

— Julia Ward Howe

5. “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat. Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on.”

— Julia Ward Howe

6. “While your life is the true expression of your faith, whom can you fear?”

— Julia Ward Howe

7. “I know not why there is such a melancholy feeling attached to the remembrance of past happiness, except that we fear that the future can have nothing so bright as the past.”

— Julia Ward Howe

8. “I am confirmed in my division of human energies. Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build.”

— Julia Ward Howe

9. “Every newly discovered truth judges the world, separates the good from the evil, and calls on faithful souls to make sure of their election.”

— Julia Ward Howe

10. “Every fallen woman represents a man as guilty as herself, who escapes human detection, but whose soul lies open before God.”

— Julia Ward Howe

11. “All the sugar was in the bottom of the cup.”

— Julia Ward Howe

12. “He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave, He is wisdom to the mighty, he is succour to the brave, So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave, Our God is marching on.”

— Julia Ward Howe

13. “I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps, I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His Day is marching on.”

— Julia Ward Howe

14. “Familiarity so dulls the edge of perception as to make us least acquainted with things forming part of our daily life.”

— Julia Ward Howe

15. “I was born ’neath a clouded star.”

— Julia Ward Howe

16. “Education keeps the key of life; and liberal education insures the first conditions of freedom, – namely, adequate knowledge and accustomed thought.”

— Julia Ward Howe

17. “How utterly are one’s best thoughts invaded by this going out in society.”

— Julia Ward Howe

18. “There is no hell like that of a selfish heart, and there is no misfortune so great as that of not being able to make a sacrifice. These two thoughts come to me strongly this morning. It is something to have learned these truths so that we can never again doubt them.”

— Julia Ward Howe

19. “Hope died as I was led unto my marriage bed.”

— Julia Ward Howe

20. “The language of the face is not taught by the schools; it is intuitive, and to the observant is always legible.”

— Julia Ward Howe

21. “The broken eggshell of a civilization which time has hatched and devoured.”

— Julia Ward Howe

22. “Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of mind.”

— Julia Ward Howe

23. “When I see the elaborate study and ingenuity displayed by women in the pursuit of trifles, I feel no doubt of their capacity for the most herculean undertakings.”

— Julia Ward Howe

24. “Boston is an oasis in the desert, a place where the larger proportion of people are loving, rational and happy.”

— Julia Ward Howe

25. “In the nature of things, I must soon lose sight of this sense of constant metamorphosis whose limits bound our human life.”

— Julia Ward Howe

26. “God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature.”

— Julia Ward Howe

27. “It is always legitimate to wish to rise above one’s self, never above others.”

— Julia Ward Howe

28. “When I behold the passion for ornamentation, and the corresponding power, I feel as if women had so far shown what they are bad for, rather than what they are good for.”

— Julia Ward Howe

29. “Massachusetts women as a rule adhere too strongly to old-time conventions.”

— Julia Ward Howe

30. “Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature.”

— Julia Ward Howe

31. “Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?”

— Julia Ward Howe

32. “Charity is an unending self-discipline which always looks and leads towards the eternal affection. Therefore, its triumph shall be lasting and everlasting.”

— Julia Ward Howe

33. “Theology in general seems to me a substitution of human ingenuity for divine wisdom.”

— Julia Ward Howe

34. “Many a woman will pass for elegant in a ballroom, or even at a court drawing room, whose want of true breeding would become evident in a chosen company.”

— Julia Ward Howe

35. “I sometimes think God allows Great Britain to be unprincipled for the good of mankind.”

— Julia Ward Howe

36. “I never could be good when I was not happy.”

— Julia Ward Howe

37. “I have never known my husband to approve any act of mine which I myself valued.”

— Julia Ward Howe

38. “It is not good for beauty that it should be a profession.”

— Julia Ward Howe

39. “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn? all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.”

— Julia Ward Howe

40. “Much of the work of every life is done in the dark.”

— Julia Ward Howe

41. “Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.”

— Julia Ward Howe

42. “In Virgil’s account of the good housewife, who rises early in order to measure out the work of the household, and in Solomon’s description of the thrifty woman of his time, one sees the value set upon feminine industry and economy in times far removed from our own.”

— Julia Ward Howe

43. “It has been strange to me to return to life and to feel that I have any sympathy with human beings, after the long interval of quiet and indifference which succeeded my marriage.”

— Julia Ward Howe

44. “When the unwelcome little unborn shall have seen the light my brain will be lightened, and I shall have a clearer mind. Thank God that even this weary nine months shall come to an end and leave me in possession of my own body and my own soul.”

— Julia Ward Howe

45. “The reason why education is usually so poor among women of fashion is, that it is not needed for the life which they elect to lead.”

— Julia Ward Howe

46. “The blind must not only be fed and housed and cared for; they must learn to make thir lives useful to the community.”

— Julia Ward Howe

47. “Heaven knows what I have not been through with, since I saw you-dust, dirt, dyspepsia, hotels, railroads, prairies, tobacco juice.”

— Julia Ward Howe

48. “My children are babies and my husband has scarcely half an hour in 24 to give me.”

— Julia Ward Howe

49. “Beneath all differences of doctrine or discipline there exists a fundamental agreement as to the simple, absolute essentials in religion.”

— Julia Ward Howe

50. “Don’t you think that the best things are already in view?”

— Julia Ward Howe