Quotes from Edith Schaeffer

Human beings were made to interact with growing things, not to be born, live, and die in the midst of concrete set in the middle of polluted air!

There is something about saying, 'We always do this,' which helps keep the years together. Time is such an elusive thing that if we keep on meaning to do something interesting, but never do it, year would follow year with no special thoughtfulness being expressed in making gifts, surprises, charming table settings, and familiar food. Tradition is a good gift intended to guard the best gifts.

It is not necessary to have an extravagant food budget in order to serve things with variety and tastefully cooked. It is not necessary to have expensive food on the plates before they can enter the dining room as things of beauty in colour and texture. Food should be served with real care as to the colour and texture on the plates, as well as with imaginative taste. This is where artistic talent and aesthetic expression and fulfillment come in.

Even if (musical) talent is "just" used within a family, someone is appreciating what is being produced, or is sharing in the enjoyment.... for relaxation; for just plain fun and sharing: for the experience of doing something creative together.

You have started, whether you recognize that fact or not. We foolish mortals sometimes live through years of not realizing how short life is, and that TODAY is our life. The day comes when we die.

There needs to be a homemaker exercising some measure of skill, imagination, creativity, desire to fulfill needs and give pleasure to others in the family. How precious a thing is the human family. It it not worth some sacrifice in time, energy, safety, discomfort, work? Does anything come forth without work?

Because man was created in the image of a creator. Man was created that he might create. It is not a waste of mans time to be creative. It is not a waste to pursue artistic or scientific pursuits in creativity, because this is what man was made to be able to do. He was made in he image of a creator, and given the capacity to create.

The most precious thing a human being has to give is time. There is so very little of it, after all, in a life.

There is no occasion when meals should become totally unimportant. Meals can be very small indeed, very inexpensive, short times taken in the midst of a big push of work, but they should be always more than just food.

I am sure that there is no place in the world where your message would not be enhanced by your making the place (whether tiny or large, a hut or a palace) orderly, artistic and beautiful with some form of creativity, some form of 'art'.

For anyone who wants to write, and hopes some day to publish what he or she has written, it is far more important to write than it is to study about writing.

I cannot understand the almost exclusive emphasis on racial integration, when in fact we are getting more and more segregated into tight little cliques on age grounds.