I have been reading How Green Was My Valley  by Richard Llewellyn, a very interesting book about the Welsh people at the turn of the century.  The family depicted were so strong and in many ways so honorable that I found myself inspired to honor my husband more and make the Word of God more prominent in my home.  Towards the end the book goes down hill some as the main character experiments with sin but I found a few quotes noteworthy.

"No man ever made himself more useful to himself or his fellow man by living in filth and dirt"

Because the son was found living in lodgings where the sheets were unchanged and the laundry undone.  A good lesson in diligence from a family without our modern cleaning conveniences.

"Something is strange in the faces of people who live all their lives in a town.  For their lives are full of the clock and their eyes are blind with seeing so many wonders, and they have no pleasure of expectation or prettiness of wish.  Good things are heaped in the windows all round them but their pockets are empty and thus they suffer in their minds, for where they would own, now they must wish, and wishes denied soon turn to a lust that shows itself in the face.  Too much to see, day after day and too much noise for peace, and too little time in a round of the clock to sit by themselves, and think."

Written 1939, sounds like a commentary on consumerism in the U.S.