Ella Wheeler Wilcox: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone".

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) was an American author and poet.

Her best-known work was Poems of Passion.

Mrs. Wilcox was certainly New Thought in her general outlook, and in common with many who later became leaders of the New Thought movement, attended classes by the "teacher of teachers," Emma Curtis Hopkins. She was not strictly New Thought per se, being interested in Theosophy, Spiritualism and the occult. She was strongly drawn to Spiritualism and gave much credit to Oriental--especially Indian thought, as the source of many of her ideas.

Her most enduring work was "Solitude":

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.