John Hay Quotes & Sayings

In a society so estranged from animals as ours, we often fail to credit them with any form of language. If we do, it comes under the heading of communication rather than speech. And yet, the great silence we have imposed on the rest of life contains innumerable forms of expression. Where does our own language come from but this unfathomed store that characterizes innumerable species?
We are now more than halfway removed from what the unwritten word meant to our ancestors, who believed in the original, primal word behind all manifestations of the spirit. You sang because you were answered. The answers come from life around you. Prayers, chants, and songs were also responses to the elements, to the wind, the sun and stars, the Great Mystery behind them. Life on earth springs from a collateral magic that we rarely consult. We avoid the unknown as if we were afraid that contact would lower our sense of self-esteem. — John Hay

There are occasions when you can hear the mysterious language of the Earth, in water, or coming through the trees, emanating from the mosses, seeping through the under currents of the soil, but you have to be willing to wait and receive. — John Hay

I think that saving a little child And bringing him to his own, Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around the throne. — John Hay

Love's Prayer If Heaven would hear my prayer, My dearest wish would be, Thy sorrows not to share But take them all on me; If Heaven would hear my prayer. I'd beg with prayers and sighs That never a tear might flow From out thy lovely eyes, If Heaven might grant it so; Mine be the tears and sighs. No cloud thy brow should cover, But smiles each other chase From lips to eyes all over Thy sweet and sunny face; The clouds my heart should cover. That all thy path be light Let darkness fall on me; If all thy days be bright, Mine black as night could be; My love would light my night. For thou art more than life, And if our fate should set Life and my love at strife, How could I then forget I love thee more than life? — John Hay

This beach I voyage on leads me through the earth's immortal consistencies. Each form I encounter obeys the principles of perfection and trial, a timelessness in the making. The proportions of truth are at hand. Existence is celebrated in a splinter of driftwood, worn by wind-driven sand into the shape of an arrow. The onshore waves jostle each other, busy with their eternal changing, mixing crab shells, sand grains, and fish bones together. The trim little shorebirds feeding at the water's edge are acutely aware of one another, under the light and shadow leaning and drifting over all awareness. Wither own mysteries behind their beady eyes, their quick, advantageous movements, they follow the great, unifying sea." ~ John Hay. Bird of Light. — John Hay

Speak with the speech of the world; think with the thoughts of the few. — John Hay

Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting, Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life. — John Hay

There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going, when they seem going they come: diplomats, women, and crabs. — John Hay

The wooing of those days was prompt and practical. There was no time for the gradual approaches of an idler and more conventional age. It is related of one Stout, one of the legendary Nimrods of Illinois, who was well and frequently married, that he had one unfailing formula of courtship. He always promised the ladies whose hearts he was besieging that "they should live in the timber where they could pick up their own firewood. — John Hay

The use of proverbs is characteristic of an unlettered people. They are invaluable treasures to dunces with good memories. — John Hay

What is first love worth, except to prepare for a second? What does second love bring? Only regret for the first. — John Hay

Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him, And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins. — John Hay

It would never occur to most of us that 'plants' say anything at all, except in terms of what we read into them, or try to use them for. Yet in their responses to this wonderfully rhythmic and varying earth they are the most expressive of all forms of life. — John Hay

True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home. — John Hay

The best loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day. — John Hay

Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else. — John Hay

At my door the Pale Horse stands to carry me to unknown lands. — John Hay

And there, next to me, as the east wind blows in early fall, a season open to great migrations, are those lives, threading the air and waters of the sea, that come out of an incomparable darkness, which is also my own. — John Hay

friends are the sunshine of life. — John Hay

The people will come to their own at last,-God is not mocked forever. — John Hay

Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient, resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel. — John Hay

Dealing with a government with whom mendacity is a science is an extremely difficult matter. — John Hay

The Light of Love Each shining light above us Has its own peculiar grace; But every light of heaven Is in my darling's face. For it is like the sunlight, So strong and pure and warm, That folds all good and happy things, And guards from gloom and harm. And it is like the moonlight, So holy and so calm; The rapt peace of a summer night, When soft winds die in balm. And it is like the starlight; For, love her as I may, She dwells still lofty and serene In mystery far away. — John Hay