Edward Everett Hale quotes

Edward Everett Hale was an American author, historian, and Unitarian minister, best remembered for his short story "The Man Without a Country." His writings promoted humanitarian causes and social reform throughout the United States. He inspired generations through his leadership, literature, and activism. Here are 23 of his quotes:

If you have accomplished all that you planned for yourself, you have not planned enough. (Edward Everett Hale)
To look forward and not back, To look out and not in, and To lend a hand. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Make it your habit not to be critical about small things. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?" someone asked the chaplain. "No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
The church itself has got to go outside of its own borders and carry the gospel to ev'ry creature, or it is no church of Christ; and any mutual improvement club which thinks that by reading its Shakspearo, or by acting its pretty tableaux, or by having. this or that little reading from Spenser and from Chaucer, it is going to lift itself up into any higher order of culture or life, is wholly mistaken, unless as an essential part of its duty, it goes out into the world, finds those that are falling down, and lifts them up to the majesty of freemen, who are sons of God. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds-- all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man's success in life. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Together - one of the most inspiring words in the English language. Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
We went on in our quiet way. Life was purer and simpler and less annoyed to us, because constantly, now, we met with near and dear friends whom we had not known a day before, who looked up and not down, looked out and not in, looked forward and not backward, and were ready to lend a hand. Life seemed simpler to them, and it is my belief that to all of us, in proportion as we bothered less about cultivating ourselves, and were willing to spend and be spent for that without us, above us, and before us, life became infinite and this world became heaven. (Edward Everett Hale)
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
In the name of Hypocrites, doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Wise anger is like fire from a flint: there is great ado to get it out; and when it does come, it is out again immediately. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
War - hard apprenticeship of freedom. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Can it be possible that all human sympathies can thrive, and all human powers be exercised, and all human joys increase, if we live with all our might with the thirty or forty people next to us, telegraphing kindly to all other people, to be sure? Can it be possible that our passion for large cities, and large parties, and large theatres, and large churches, develops no faith nor hope nor love which would not find aliment and exercise in a little "world of our own"? View quote
Edward Everett Hale
The smaller class of the two consists of the books written by people who had something to say. They had in life learned something, or seen something, or done something, which they really wanted and needed to tell to other people. They told it. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
It is the part which contains all that is worth reading. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Can it be possible that all human sympathies can thrive, and all human powers be exercised, and all human joys increase, if we live with all our might with the thirty or forty people next to us, telegraphing kindly to all other people, to be sure? View quote
Edward Everett Hale
Every day from that day was festival, - century after century. So soon as the world once learned the infinite blessing of Active Love, and stayed it by Faith, and enjoyed it in Hope, there was no danger that the world should unlearn that lesson. That lesson - if this vision of a possibility prove true - comes to the world by no change of law; by no new revelation, nor other gospel than the world has now. It comes simply as man after man and woman after woman lead such unselfish lives, as all of us see sometimes, as all would be glad to live... (Edward Everett Hale)
Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale? View quote
Edward Everett Hale
That day the whole world held festival. All schools were dismissed, - all banks and workshops and factories closed, - all "unnecessary labor suspended," as the great salutes and the great chimes came booming out, which announced the agreement of a world of self-forgetting men. That day, do I say? Every day from that day was festival, - century after century. So soon as the world once learned the infinite blessing of Active Love, and stayed it by Faith, and enjoyed it in Hope, there was no danger that the world should unlearn that lesson. That lesson - if this vision of a possibility prove true - comes to the world by no change of law; by no new revelation, nor other gospel than the world has now. It comes simply as man after man and woman after woman lead such unselfish lives, as all of us see sometimes, as all would be glad to live... View quote
Edward Everett Hale