Faith Baldwin Quotes & Sayings

Gratitude is a humble emotion. It expresses itself in a thousand ways, from a sincere thank you to friend or stranger, to the mute, up-reaching acknowledgment to God
not for the gifts of this day only, but for the day itself; not for what we believe will be ours in the future, but for the bounty of the past. — Faith Baldwin

Kissing tends to bring on woolgathering, even amnesia. — Faith Baldwin

When our personal world is dark, we seek to fix the blame on any one of a number of factors - heredity, parents, destiny, what is known as bad luck or the bad break, and occasionally even on God.

It takes a long while to learn that sometimes we, ourselves, put out or, at least cloud over, our own sun, and that all things balance in the end. In nights of darkness we forget the shining days, though everyone experiences both. — Faith Baldwin

The plan of Nature is progress and for any progress mankind must pay a price. It is quite evident to me that man must pay for everything except for the natural beauty of the landscape, which, if he is fortunate enough to live where it still exists, is free. Beauty has always existed and always will. Man has destroyed much of it, but he can never destroy all. The oceans are unchanged and the rivers still flow, even though some of them are laden with pollution, and some overflow, and others are less brimful than they were. The mountains stand. Man has made changes, he builds highways, cuts down trees, deflects a river's course as well as poisons it, yet beauty remains.

Therefore, I think we should take time to enjoy what we can see of it. — Faith Baldwin

The Creator of all men and all things has provided the challenge of change, the necessity for acceptance, and variations of all patterns. We live by change, by struggle and the unexpected; for only in change, struggle, and the unexpected can we achieve growth. — Faith Baldwin

The shadow of fear and uncertainty lies over most of us; for us the future seems far from being as clear and open as we believed it would be. — Faith Baldwin

Look back upon winter with gratitude. Spring is the harvest of the darker months - everything you know starts to grow in darkness. Don't write and tell me that winter brought you only colds or the ubiquitous virus. Perhaps it did bring those (and to me as well). Who goes through the chilly months unscathed? But it also brought things not to be forgotten - silver moons and snow, brilliant under stars; it brought Christmas and a new year, and to each of us something happy, something unexpected, which was not another problem but a joy. For the pendulum swings; nothing is static; and the road, however long, does turn. — Faith Baldwin

I think one should forgive and remember ... If you forgive and forget in the usual sense, you're just driving what you remember into the subconscious; it stays there and festers. But to look, even regularly, upon what you remember and know you've forgiven is achievement. — Faith Baldwin

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees. — Faith Baldwin

The first flash of color always excites me as much as the first frail, courageous bloom of spring. This is, in a sense, my season
sometimes warm and, when the wind blows an alert, sometimes cold. But there is a clarity about September. On clear days, the sun seems brighter, the sky more blue, the white clouds take on marvelous shapes; the moon is a wonderful apparition, rising gold, cooling to silver; and the stars are so big. The September storms
the hurricane warnings far away, the sudden gales, the downpour of rain that we have so badly needed here for so long
are exhilarating, and there's a promise that what September starts, October will carry on, catching the torch flung into her hand. — Faith Baldwin

I see now how things even up, how they are squared away, and how they balance under the law of love and justice. No year of life is emotionally, spiritually or even materially, all drought or all rainfall; nor is it all sun. The road turns a little every day, and one day there's a sudden twist we didn't dream was there, and for every loss there is somewhere a gain, for every grief a happiness, for every deprivation a giving. — Faith Baldwin

Each season is a forerunner of the next, and as the earth revolves, we learn to adjust, and consent to, the alterations. — Faith Baldwin

There's nothing like fishing to pass the time and to incline toward a sort of magnificent stupidity in which nothing matters but tackle, bait, sunlight and the strike. — Faith Baldwin

Every generation proclaims that each must lead his own life, but seldom grants the subsequent generation the right to lead theirs. — Faith Baldwin

I've always thought that the most perfect fate which could befall any woman would be to be born a rich widow. — Faith Baldwin

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness. — Faith Baldwin

Life is rather like a long train ride; you may encounter a great many people, but looking out from your own small compartment of self you catch only a glimpse of other people's joy or despair. — Faith Baldwin

Acceptance is a far better word and denotes a more positive attitude than resignation; I've always known that, but in recent days I've found one which is better still; it is consent. — Faith Baldwin

I've known a lot of alleged failures in my time and many of them, in losing what the world has always considered success, have achieved in facing up to failure, more than they ever achieved when they were considered successful. — Faith Baldwin

The one universal form of art is music. — Faith Baldwin

No matter how shut in we are by weather, by physical handicaps or by such mental conditions as we manufacture for ourselves, we are still free people as long as the mind functions, the imagination is stirred and the desire to reach out, to experience, feel and know, is with us; as long as the heart beats and with it the pulses of love, interest, and empathy for and with other people. — Faith Baldwin

Very little, really, in life is lost; material things, now and then; money which is material but necessary, often; friends, relatives, sometimes through estrangements. True love never, I believe. Death does not rob us of the essential person we have loved and still love. It deprives us of the physical presence, but never of the spiritual closeness, or of memories. — Faith Baldwin

From one hour to the next a life may change.... But as I have thought and said for years, acceptance is a key to strength and practice makes it easier. — Faith Baldwin

Occasionally the impossible happens; this is a truism that accounts for much of what we call good luck; and also, bad. — Faith Baldwin

The spirit within each human being is a small fragment of the Divine and Eternal, and if we give it the opportunity to speak, it will do so - but only when we keep our engagement to dismiss everyday difficulties, be quiet, and listen. — Faith Baldwin

We may differ widely in environments, education, learning, knowledge, or lack of it, and in our personalities, our likes and dislikes. But if we set ourselves the task, we'll find a meeting place somehow and somewhere. — Faith Baldwin

Praying, we usually ask too much. I know I do. Sometimes we even demand. I think I am learning to ask enough for the moment
not for the whole year, utterly veiled in mystery; not even for the week, the month ahead; but just for today.
Jesus said it all when He told us to pray: 'Give us this day our daily bread.'
That bread is not only material, it is spiritual; in asking for it, we ask for a sufficiency of strength, courage, hope and light. Enough courage for the step ahead
not for the further miles. Enough strength for the immediate task or ordeal. Enough material gain to enable us to meet our daily obligations. Enough light to see the path
right before our feet. — Faith Baldwin

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations — Faith Baldwin

We learn from joy but also from grief; we learn from achievement, but just as much from failure; and what we learn from grief and failure is, after a while, to be grateful... All of us, young and old, learn more from obstacles than from the smooth path and from bracing ourselves against sudden harsh winds than from the undisturbed weather. — Faith Baldwin

You cannot contribute anything to the ideal condition of mind and heart known as Brotherhood, however much you preach, posture, or agree, unless you live it. — Faith Baldwin

One of the dreariest spots on life's road is the point of conviction that nothing will ever again happen to you. — Faith Baldwin

I have learned over a period of time to be almost unconsciously grateful
as a child is
for a sunny day, blue water, flowers in a vase, a tree turning red. I have learned to be glad at dawn and when the sky is dark. Only children and a few spiritually evolved people are born to feel gratitude as naturally as they breathe, without even thinking. Most of us come to it step by painful step, to discover that gratitude is a form of acceptance. — Faith Baldwin

Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence. — Faith Baldwin

Late last year, I spoke to a group of young married people, all its members very perturbed about the world in which we live, about problems which, of course, might affect their private worlds. I could give them no easy answers. Having lived for a few months past sixty-eight years, and having been a professional writer for over forty of them, has not endowed me with special wisdom. I don't know any how-to-do or solve-it-yourself formulas. I know as little as these young folks about the future, and I could tell them only to bend with the wind and lean upon the spirit. — Faith Baldwin

What I have learned from the year past is something about miracles
miracles of healing and answered prayer and unexpected happy endings. Each came quietly and simply, on tiptoe, so that I hardly knew it had occurred.
All this makes me realize that miracles are everyday things. Not only the sudden, great good fortune, wafting in on a new wind from the sky. They are almost routine, yet miracles just the same.
Every time something hard becomes easier; every time you adjust to a situation which, last week, you didn't know existed; every time a kindness falls as softly as the dew; or someone you love who was ill grows better; every time a blessing comes, not with trumpet and fanfare, but silently as night, you have witnessed a miracle. — Faith Baldwin

Faith is the spiritual house in which we live. — Faith Baldwin

All reading matter, fiction or nonfiction, inspirational or factual - no matter where the stage is set whether the books were printed a hundred or more years ago or only yesterday, whether or not we like what we read - is a journey for the mind. We find ourselves in strange countries and walk in them with strange people, for a time. Often we do not like what we see and hear and encounter; often we do not comprehend it. It's like arriving someplace at night, and then in the morning looking out of the windows, not understanding what we see.
However, whether we travel with pleasure or repulsion, comprehension or bewilderment, these journeys expand the mind and enlarge our grasp of the world that once was or that which is now, or even that which may sometime be. — Faith Baldwin

In my belief, a harvest is also a legacy, for very often what you reap is, in the way of small miracles, more than you consciously know you have sown. — Faith Baldwin

Most of us forget to take time for wonder, praise and gratitude until it is almost too late. Gratitude is a many-colored quality, reaching in all directions. It goes out for small things and for large; it is a God-ward going. — Faith Baldwin

A joy in living, a natural expression of the will to survive all personal disaster, can be constant despite whatever changes take place. Some fortunate people are born with it and others acquire it through learning and growth. — Faith Baldwin

Men's private self-worlds are rather like our geographical world's seasons, storm, and sun, deserts, oases, mountains and abysses, the endless-seeming plateaus, darkness and light, and always the sowing and the reaping. — Faith Baldwin