Nathaniel Parker Willis Quotes & Sayings

Vulgarity is more obvious in satin than in homespun. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Some noble spirits mistake despair for content. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

I'm weary of my lonely but
And of its blasted tree,
The very lake is like my lot,
So silent constantly
I've liv'd amid the forest gloom
Until I almost fear
When will the thrilling voices come
My spirit thirsts to hear? — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The Italians say that a beautiful woman by her smiles draws tears from our purse. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The value of life deepens incalculably with the privileges of travel. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Press on! for in the grave there is no work and no device. Press on! while yet you may. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

One lamp - thy mother's love - amid the stars Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before The throne of God, burn through eternity - Holy - as it was lit and lent thee here. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Wisdom, sits alone, topmost in heaven: she is its light, its God; and in the heart of man she sits as high, though groveling minds forget her oftentimes, seeing but this world's idols. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Fine taste is an aspect of genius itself, and is the faculty of delicate appreciation, which makes the best effects of art our own. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nature has wrought with a bolder hand in America. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The innocence that feels no risk and is taught no caution, is more vulnerable than guilt, and oftener assailed. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Flirtation is a circulating library, in which we seldom ask twice for the same volume. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The lily and the rose in her fair face striving for precedence. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The perfect world, by Adam trod,
Was the first temple
built by God
His fiat laid the corner stone,
And heaved its pillars, one by one. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

If e'er I win a parting token,
'Tis something that has lost its power
A chain that has been used and broken,
A ruin'd glove, a faded flower;
Something that makes my pleasure less,
Something that means
forgetfulness. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

He who binds his soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

O, when the heart is, full, when bitter thoughts come crowding thickly up for utterance, and the poor common words of courtesy are such a very mockery, how much the bursting heart may pour itself in prayer! — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The ear in man and beast is an evidence of blood and high breeding. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nature has thrown a veil of modest beauty over maidenhood and moss-roses. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Maturity is most rapid in the low latitudes, where pineapples and women most do thrive. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Pitch a lucky man into the Nile, says the Arabian proverb, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth! — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The sin forgiven by Christ in HeavenBy man is cursed alway. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Ah me! the world is full of meetings such as this,
a thrill, a voiceless challenge and reply, and sudden partings after! — Nathaniel Parker Willis

A flirt is like a dipper attached to a hydrant; every one is at liberty to drink from it, but no one desires to carry it away. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

It is the month of June,
The month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes
And pleasant scents the noses. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The smallest pebble in the well of truth has its peculiar meaning, and will stand when man's best monuments have passed away. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The night is made for tenderness,
so still that the low whisper, scarcely audible, is heard like music,
and so deeply pure that the fond thought is chastened as it springs and on the lip made holy. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

We may believe that we shall know each other's forms hereafter; and in the bright fields of the better land call the lost dead to us. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The Spring is here
the delicate footed May,
With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers,
And with it comes a thirst to be away.
In lovelier scenes to pass these sweeter hours. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

I love to go and mingle with the young
In the gay festal room
when every heart
Is beating faster than the merry tune,
And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips
Parted with eager joy, and their round cheeks
Flush'd with the beautiful motion of the dance. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The taste forever refines in the study of women. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Blessed are the joymakers. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The expressive word "quiet" defines the dress, manners, bow, and even physiognomy of every true denizen of St. James and Bond street. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

T is the work of many a dark hour, many a prayer, to bring the heart back from an infant gone. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

There is to me a daintiness about early flowers that touches me like poetry. They blow out with such a simple loveliness among the common herbs of pastures, and breathe their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts whose beatings are too gentle for the world. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Like Melrose Abbey, large cities should especially be viewed by moonlight. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The rain is playing its soft pleasant tune fitfully on the skylight, and the shade of the fast-flying clouds across my book passed with delicate change. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies-
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The position you hold and the work you are now doing. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The soul of man createth its own destiny of power; and as the trial is intenser here, his being hath a nobler strength in heaven. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Temptation hath a music for all ears. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Youth is beautiful; its friendship is precious; the intercourse with it is a purifying release from the worn and stained harness of older life. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

I have unlearned contempt; it is a sin that is engendered earliest in the soul, and doth beset it like a poison worm feeding on all its beauty. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

But he who never sins can little boast Compared to him who goes and sins no more! — Nathaniel Parker Willis

How beautiful it is for a man to die
Upon the walls of Zion! to be called
Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel,
To put his armour off, and rest in heaven! — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nature's noblemen are everywhere,
in town and out of town, gloved and rough-handed, rich and poor. Prejudice against a lord, because he is a lord, is losing the chance of finding a good fellow, as much as prejudice against a ploughman because he is a ploughman. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

One gets, sensitive about losing mornings after getting a little used to them with living in a country. Each one of these endlessly varied daybreaks is an opera but once performed. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

And mad ambition trumpeteth to all. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

It is godlike to unloose the spirit, and forget yourself in thought. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

I knelt, and with the fervor of a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told my love. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Gentleness is the great point to be obtained in the study of manners. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

There is no divining-rod whose dip shall tell us at twenty what we shall most relish at thirty. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Spring is a beautiful piece of work; and not to be in the country to see it done is the not realizing what glorious masters we are, and how cheerfully, minutely, and unflaggingly the fair fingers of the season broider the world for us. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

The children of the poor are so apt to look as if the rich would have been over-blest with such! Alas for the angel capabilities, interrupted so soon with care, and with after life so sadly unfulfilled. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

A lamp is lit in woman's eye; that souls, else lost on earth, remember angels by. — Nathaniel Parker Willis