Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - quotes
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.
About author
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, whom Griswold describes as the greatest American poet, was born at Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and he died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 24, 1882. His father was of Puritan stock, and a lawyer by profession. He possessed the necessary wealth to give his children school opportunities. At the age of fourteen young Longfellow was sent to Bowdoin College, where he graduated at eighteen. He was a close student, as shown by the testimony of his classmate, the talented Nathaniel Hawthorne, also by the recollections of Mr. Packard, one of his teachers. These glimpses that we catch of the boy reveal a modest... |
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A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.
A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.
Ah, how skillful grows the hand that obeyeth love's command! It is the heart and not the brain that to the highest doth attain, and he who followeth love's behest far excelleth all the rest.
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.
All things come round to him who will but wait.
All things must change to something new, to something strange.
Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
And yet not turn your back upon the world.
Build today, then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.
Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.
Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.
Evil is only good perverted.
Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
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.
For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.
Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think.
He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night.
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
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.
I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.
I stay a little longer, as one stays, to cover up the embers that still burn.
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.
If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it.
In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.
Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.
Into each life some rain must fall.
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.
It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.
Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor's nose.
Know how sublime a thing is to suffer and be strong.
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.
Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.
Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.
Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.
Love gives itself; it is not bought.
Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
Man is always more than he can know of himself; consequently, his accomplishments, time and again, will come as a surprise to him.
Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.
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.
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
People demand freedom only when they have no power.
Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
Resolve and thou art free.
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!
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.
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death.
Something attempted, something done, Has earned a nights repose.
Sometimes we may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues.
Talk not of wasted affection - affection never was wasted.
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.
The grave is but a covered bridge Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!
The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.
The heights by great men reached and keptWere not obtained by sudden flight,But they, while their companions sleptWere toiling upward in the night.
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.
The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.
The morning pouring everywhere, its golden glory on the air.
The nearer the dawn the darker the night.
The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.
The secret anniversaries of the heart.
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
There is nothing holier, in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of love - the first fluttering of its siken wings.
Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.
To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.
Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act - act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.
Whoever benefits his enemy with straightforward intention that man's enemies will soon fold their hands in devotion.
Would you learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers, comprehend its mystery!
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.
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!
You know I say just what I think, and nothing more and less. I cannot say one thing and mean another.
Youth comes but once in a lifetime.
