Farmer Boy Quotes

“Never bet your money on another man's game.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you're a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You'll be free and independent, son, on a farm.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“It was muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was axes, and plows that made this country.- Father Wilder”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“all the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the mountains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America.” “How?” Almanzo asked. “Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you’re a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You’ll be free and independent, son, on a farm.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy: Little House on the Prairie #2

“It's work, son," Father said. "That's what money is; it's hard work.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“He knew you could never teach an animal anything if you struck it, or even shouted at it angrily. He must always be gentle, and quiet, and patient, even when they made mistakes. Star”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Almanzo! What’s the matter? Be you sick? It’s five o’clock!”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy: Little House on the Prairie #2

“There was no time to lose, no time to waste in rest or play. The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“You can fill a glass full to the brim with milk, and fill another glass of the same size brim full of popcorn, and then you can put all the popcorn kernel by kernel into the milk, and the milk will not run over. You cannot do this with bread. Popcorn and milk are the only two things that will go into the same place.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Mothers always fuss about the way you eat. You can hardly eat any way that pleases them.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“They rolled till the balls were almost as tall as Almanzo; then they rolled them into a wall. They packed snow between them, and made a good fort.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy: Little House on the Prairie #2

“That was a cold, late spring. The dawns were chilly, and at noon the sunlight was cool. The trees unfolded their leaves slowly; the peas and beans, the carrots and corn, stood waiting for warmth and did not grow. When the rush of spring’s work was over, Almanzo had to go to school again. Only small children went to the spring term of school, and he wished he were old enough to stay home. He didn’t like to sit and study a book when there were so many interesting things to do. Father hauled the fleeces to the carding-machine in Malone, and brought home the soft, long rolls of wool, combed out straight and fine. Mother didn’t card her own wool any more, since there was a machine that did it on shares. But she dyed it. Alice and Eliza Jane were gathering roots and barks in the woods, and Royal was building huge bonfires in the yard. They boiled the roots and the bark in big caldrons over the fires, and they dipped the long skeins of wool thread that Mother had spun, and lifted them”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy: Little House on the Prairie #2

“Haste makes waste, but a lazy man'd rather get his work done fast than do it himself...all it saves is time, son. And what good is time, with nothing to do? You want to sit and twiddle your thumbs, all these stormy winter days?”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Almanzo could see his feet, but of course Alice's were hidden under her skirts. Her hoops rounded out, and she had to pull them back and stoop to drop the seeds neatly into the furrow.
Almanzo asked her if she didn't want to be a boy. She said yes, she did. Then she said no, she didn't.
"Boys aren't pretty like girls, and they can't wear ribbons."
"I don't care how pretty I be," Almanzo said. "And I wouldn't wear ribbons anyhow."
"Well, I like to make butter and I like to patch quilts. And cook, and sew, and spin. Boys can't do that. But even if I be a girl, I can drop potatoes and sow carrots and drive horses as well as you can."
"You can't whistle on a grass stem," Almanzo said.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Cattle did not have to be led to water. They came eagerly to the trough and drank while Almanzo pumped, then they hurried back to the warm barns, and each went to its own place. Each cow turned into her own stall and put her head between her own stanchions. They never made a mistake.
Whether this was because they had more sense than horses, or because they had so little sense that they did everything by habit, Father did not know.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“The candle-light was dim, as though the darkness were trying to put it out.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Down a long road through the woods a little boy trudged to school, with his big brother Royal and his two sisters, Eliza Jane and Alice. Royal was thirteen years old, Eliza Jane was twelve, and Alice was ten. Almanzo was the youngest of all, and this was his first going-to-school, because he was not quite nine years old.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“That's the noise that made the Redcoats run!" Mr. Paddock said to Father.
"Maybe," Father said, tugging his beard. "But it was muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was axes and plows that made this country."
"That's so, come to think of it," Mr. Paddock said.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Almanzo couldn't understand how Father knew that he wasn't looking at the preacher, if Father was looking at the preacher himself. But Father always did know.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Mother said she would always believe that Providence had sent the strange dog to watch over them. Almanzo thought perhaps he stayed because Alice fed him.
"Maybe he was sent to try us," Mother said. "Maybe the Lord was merciful to us because we were merciful to him.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Almanzo knew that in the whole world there was nothing so beautiful, so fascinating, as beautiful horses. When he thought that it would be years and years before he could have a little colt to teach and take care of, he could hardly bear it.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“The cannons leaped backward, the air was full of flying grass and weeds. Almanzo ran with all the other boys to feel the warm muzzles of the cannons. Everybody was exclaiming about what a loud noise they had made. “That’s the noise that made the Redcoats run!” Mr. Paddock said to Father. “Maybe,” Father said, tugging his beard. “But it was muskets that won the Revolution. And don’t forget it was axes and plows that made this country.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Almanzo”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“It was farmers that took all that land and made it America...It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung onto their land.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“This country goes three thousand miles west, now. It goes ’way out beyond Kansas, and beyond the Great American Desert, over mountains bigger than these mountains, and down to the Pacific Ocean. It’s the biggest country in the world, and it was farmers who took all that country and made it America, son. Don’t you ever forget that.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Popcorn is American. Nobody but the Indians ever had popcorn, till after the Pilgrim Fathers came to America. On”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“There was no time to lose, no time to waste in rest or play. The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime. All the wild seeds of weed and thistle, the sprouts of vine and bush and tree, are trying to take the fields. Farmers must fight them with harrow and plow and hoe; they must plant the good seeds quickly.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“Almanzo could only look longingly at the eager three-year-olds. He just touched their velvety noses, and then he went quickly away from them, and put on his barn frock over his good school-clothes.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“What good is time with nothing to do?”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy