Top 61 Quotes by Dorothea Dix

Life is not to be expended in vain regrets. No day, no hour, comes but brings in its train work to be performed for some useful end - the suffering to be comforted, the wandering led home, the sinner reclaimed. Oh! How can any fold the hands to rest and say to the spirit, 'Take thine ease, for all is well!'

Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character, and then he is never made radically better for its influence.

The fabled origin of the laurel is this. Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, offended by the persecutions of Apollo, implored succour of the gods, who changed her into a laurel tree. Apollo crowned his head with the leaves and ordered that forever after, the tree should be sacred to him.

I have little taste for fashionable dissipations, cards, and dancing; the theatre and tea parties are my aversion, and I look with little envy on those who find their enjoyment in such transitory delights, if delights they may be called.