Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth quotes
1819-1892 American PoetThe lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Difficulties
Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person s mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Conceit
Into each life some rain must fall, some days be dark and dreary.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Difficulties
Resolve and thou art free.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Commitment
Trouble is the next best thing to enjoyment. There is no fate in the world so horrible as to have no share in either its joys or sorrows.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Difficulties
Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Difficulties
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Cycles
All things must change to something new, to something strange.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Change
Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Courtesy
One half the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Dreams
When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Death and Dying
The course of my long life hath reached at last in fragile bark over a tempestuous sea the common harbor, where must rendered be account for all the actions of the past.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Death and Dying
In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Character
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 shortcomings are for a while lost sight of in the amiable self assertion of youth.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Books - Reading
I stay a little longer, as one stays, to cover up the embers that still burn.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Death and Dying
Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings --as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Books - Reading
Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Critics and Criticism
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Critics and Criticism
The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Critics and Criticism
Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Endurance
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Failure
Sail on ship of state, sail on, I union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, with all its hopes of future years, is hanging on thy fate!
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Fate
Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor s nose.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Health
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Love
I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, who has sight so keen and strong That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroken; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Friends and Friendship
Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Fame
Well has it been said that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Grief
Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Fame
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Failure
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Forgiveness
The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Firmness
It is a beautiful trait in the lovers character, that they think no evil of the object loved.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Love
Love gives itself; it is not bought.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Love
Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Friends and Friendship
All the means of action -- the shapeless masses -- the materials -- lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Genius
There is not grief that does not speak.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Grief
It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Passion
Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Life and Living
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.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Nature
And the night shall be filled with music, and the cares, that infest the day, shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Night
No literature is complete until the language it was written in is dead.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Language
A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Nostalgia
Life is real! Life is earnest! And death is not its goal. Dust thou art, to dust returneth, was not spoken of the soul.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Life and Living
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Judgment and Judges
The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Self-sacrifice
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Illusion
He that respects himself is safe from others; He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Self-respect
Some men must follow, and some command, though all are made of clay.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Leaders and Leadership
Every man must patiently bide his time. He must wait -- not in listless idleness but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavors, always willing and fulfilling and accomplishing his task, that when the occasion comes he may be equal to the occasion.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Patience
All things come round to him who will but wait.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Patience
I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Their old familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat. Of peace on earth goodwill to men.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Peace
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Socializing and Socialism
We have not wings we cannot soar; but, we have feet to scale and climb, by slow degrees, by more and more, the cloudy summits of our time.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Progress
It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Progress
Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act -- act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Present
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow is our destined way, but to act that each tomorrow may find us further than today.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Tomorrow
If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Perseverance
Oh, fear not in a world like this, and thou shalt know erelong, know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Suffering
Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake somebody.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Perseverance
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning -- an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Morality
It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Reason
Sometimes we may learn more from a man s errors, than from his virtues.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Mistakes
You know I say just what I think, and nothing more and less. I cannot say one thing and mean another.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Sincerity
Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. In is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and a manly heart.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Time and Time Management
Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Service
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Success
Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Simplicity
Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Reverie
The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Pursuit
Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Thoughts and Thinking
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Solitude
The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Studying
To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Remorse
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Children
Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Affection
Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Children
Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night s repose.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Action
To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Age and Aging
Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Achievement
For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress, and as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Age and Aging
I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Age and Aging
Build today, then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Action
Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Age and Aging
Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, are merely shadows cast by outward things on stone or canvas, having in themselves no separate existence. Architecture, existing in itself, and not in seeming a something it is not, surpasses them as substance shadow.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Architecture
Write on your doors the saying wise and old. Be bold! and everywhere -- Be bold; Be not too bold! Yet better the excess Than the defect; better the more than less sustaineth him and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Courage
Would you learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers, comprehend its mystery!
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Danger
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Ambition
The secret anniversaries of the heart.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Anniversaries
Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Arts and Artists
Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Beginning
Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother s face, her aspect and her attitude.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Arts and Artists
The world loves a spice of wickedness.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Wickedness
The human voice is the organ of the soul.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Voice
Then read from the treasured volume the poem of thy choice, and lend to the rhyme of the poet the beauty of thy voice.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Voice
Youth comes but once in a lifetime.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Youth
Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, to some good angel leave the rest; For Time will teach thee soon the truth, there are no birds in last year s nest!
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Youth
If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Vision
In ourselves are triumph and defeat.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Victory
How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of Beginnings, Story without End, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Youth