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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

180 quotes

“O holy trust! O endless sense of rest! Like the beloved John To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast, And thus to journey on!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My soul is full of longing For the secret of the Sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives whom we call dead.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“Build me straight, O worthy Master! Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For his heart was in his work, and the heart Giveth grace unto every Art.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And see! she stirs! She starts,—she moves,—she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And, spurning with her foot the ground, With one exulting, joyous bound, She leaps into the ocean's arms!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sail forth into the sea of life, O gentle, loving, trusting wife, And safe from all adversity Upon the bosom of that sea Thy comings and thy goings be! For gentleness and love and trust Prevail o'er angry wave and gust; And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee,—are all with thee!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“Time has laid his hand Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“Ah, the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The grave itself is but a covered bridge, Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thus departed Hiawatha, Hiawatha the Beloved, In the glory of the sunset, In the purple mists of evening, To the regions of the home-wind, Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin, To the Islands of the Blessed, To the Kingdom of Ponemah, To the Land of the Hereafter!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We often excuse our own want of philanthropy by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ardent zeal of others.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, — but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies a dull brain.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature, — were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen. By going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this man or that, or by turning down this street instead of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the whole current of our lives would have been changed. There is no possible solution to the dark enigma but the one word, "Providence".”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us build such a church, that those who come after us shall take us for madmen," said the old canon of Seville, when the great cathedral was planned. Perhaps through every mind passes some such thought, when it first entertains the design of a great and seemingly impossible action, the end of which it dimly foresees. This divine madness enters more or less into all our noblest undertakings.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel a kind of reverence for the first books of young authors. There is so much aspiration in them, so much audacious hope and trembling fear, so much of the heart's history, that all errors and short-comings are for a while lost sight of in the amiable self-assertion of youth.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Authors have a greater right than any copyright, though it is generally unacknowledged or disregarded. They have a right to the reader's civility. There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it, and to these the author has a claim. Yet many people think that when they buy a book they buy with it the right to abuse the author.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we reflect that all the aspects of Nature, all the emotions of the soul, and all the events of life, have been the subjects of poetry for hundreds and thousands of years, we can hardly wonder that there should be so many resemblances and coincidences of expression among poets, but rather that they are not more numerous and more striking.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, — the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Nature ; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Actually Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Driftwood (1857)
Also quoted by: William Wordsworth (misattributed)
“If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me, Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble to woo me? If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Singing the Hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language, Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival, Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes over-running with laughter, Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“It is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is a little chimney and heated hot in a moment.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thinking the deed, and not the creed, Would help us in our utmost need.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All things come round to him who will but wait.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow
“At all feasts where ale was strongest Sat the merry monarch longest, First to come and last to go.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And suddenly through the drifting brume The blare of the horns began to ring.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit; Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth; Greater than anger is love that subdueth.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source