MAUD LINDSAY QUOTES

American author & educator (1874-1941)

There's love, sweet love, for one and all--
For love is best for great and small.

MAUD LINDSAY

"Inside the Garden Gate", Mother Stories

Tags: love


Gretchen knew all about Christmas. She had heard the story of the loving Christ Child over and over, and in her home in Germany she had kept His birthday and enjoyed it ever since she could remember. Every year, a little before Christmas, her shoes had been placed in the garden for Rupert, who is one of Santa Claus's German helpers, to fill, and every year she had found a Christmas tree lighted for her on Christmas Day. She wondered a little, as she came across the ocean, how she would keep Christmas in the new country; and she wondered still more, when they reached a great city, and had their "boxes" carried up so many stairs to a little room in a boarding-house.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Story of Gretchen", Mother Stories


Strength and skill are happy comrades.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Giant Energy & the Fairy Skill", Mother Stories

Tags: strength


We each have a story to tell, I know; so let each one take his turn.

MAUD LINDSAY

"Fleet Wing and Sweet Voice", Mother Stories


All the world is happy when Santa Claus comes.

MAUD LINDSAY

"Santa Claus, a Wonder Story for Little Children"

Tags: Santa Claus


Love is a bridge that links us heart to heart
Mother and child can never live apart.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Little Traveler", Mother Stories


'Tis the mind must guide the hand.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Giant Energy & the Fairy Skill", Mother Stories

Tags: mind


One day the wind blew through the town, and oh, how merry it was! It whistled down the chimneys, and scampered round the corners, and sang in the tree tops. "Come and dance, come and dance, come and dance with me," that is what it seemed to say.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Wind's Fun", A Story Garden for Little Children


Once upon a time there was a saucer pie. A saucer pie is one that is baked in a saucer instead of a pan; and if you have never seen one, I hope you will before you are a hundred years old.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Saucer Pie", A Story Garden for Little Children


Merrily, merrily, listen to me,
Flitting and flying from tree to tree.
Nothing fear I, by land or sea,
For God in Heaven is watching me.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Minstrel's Song", Mother Stories

Tags: God


Children delight in folk-tale and fairy lore, but the very little child loves best the story which mirrors the familiar. And it is for him, and for the mother who is striving in this age of profusion to guard the innate simplicity of her child's nature, that I have written my little stories.

MAUD LINDSAY

preface, A Story Garden for Little Children


We're glad we made our nest of hay.
We're glad we finished it today.
We're glad we built in the maple tree.
Oh! we are so happy, chee, chee, cheeree.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Brown Birds", A Story Garden for Little Children

Tags: birds


Keep thou an open door between thy child's life and thine own.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Closing Door", Mother Stories

Tags: children


Wisdom comes with all we see,
God writes His lessons in each flower,
And ev'ry singing bird or bee
Can teach us something of His power.

MAUD LINDSAY

"Inside the Garden Gate", Mother Stories

Tags: wisdom


Long, long ago, when there were giants to be seen, as they might be seen now if we only looked in the right place, there lived a young giant who was very strong and very willing, but who found it hard to get work to do. The name of the giant was Energy, and he was so great and clumsy that people were afraid to trust their work to him. If he were asked to put a bell in the church steeple, he would knock the steeple down, before he finished the work. If he were sent to reach a broken weather vane, he would tear off part of the roof in his zeal. So, at last, people would not employ him and he went away to the mountains to sleep; but he could not rest, even though other giants were sleeping as still as great rocks under the shade of the trees.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Giant Energy & the Fairy Skill", Mother Stories


The whirling wheels, that help us on our way,
A lesson to the children, too, will say:
"Go on! there's work awaiting you to-day;
The whole world moves apace, you must not stay.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Journey", Mother Stories


Wherever I fly from my own dear nest,
I always come back, for home is the best.

MAUD LINDSAY

"Fleet Wing and Sweet Voice", Mother Stories

Tags: home


Greatness is not always largeness.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Giant Energy & the Fairy Skill", Mother Stories


Nobody follows me where I go,
Over the mountains or valleys below;
Nobody sees where the wild winds blow,
Only the Father in Heaven can know.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Minstrel's Song", Mother Stories


Oh! like a wreath, let Christmas mirth
To-day encircle all the earth,
And bind the nations with the love
That Jesus brought from heaven above.

MAUD LINDSAY

"The Story of Gretchen", Mother Stories

Tags: Christmas