H W Longfellow Quotes & Sayings

Balder the beautiful/is dead, is dead! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

But the great Master said, "I see
No best in kind, but in degree;
I gave a various gift to each,
To charm, to strengthen, and to teach". — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College, and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the Portland Gazette. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin was writing for the New England Courant, and at an early age became a noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history, Washington Irving had gained — Charles Stewart Given

If the mind, that rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to trample on its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite the oppressor. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From labor there shall come forth rest. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I will be a man among men; and no longer a dreamer among shadows. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The everyday cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true vibration and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon its wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move the clock stands still. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart of a child. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How can I teach your children gentleness and mercy to the weak, and reverence for life, which in its nakedness and excess, is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, when by your laws, your actions and your speech, you contradict the very things I teach? — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists
Could re-create the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower? — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All your strength is in union, all your danger is in discord. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I do not love thee less for what is done,
And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth
My love will have a sense of pity in it,
Making it less a worship than before. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All things are symbols. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All houses wherein men have lived and died / Are haunted houses. Through the open doors / The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, / With feet that make no sound upon the floors. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods are everywhere — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One half the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I love the season well When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming of storms. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Success is not something to wait for, it is something to work for. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The history of the past is a mere puppet-show. A little man comes out and blows a little trumpet, and goes in again. You look for something new, and lo! another little man comes out, and blows another little trumpet, and goes in again. And it is all over. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The air of summer was sweeter than wine. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I cannot believe any man can be perfectly well in body, who has much labor of the mind to perform. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love, and those who love us!
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old and lean upon them,
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,
With his flute of reeds, a stranger
Wanders piping through the village,
Beckons to the fairest maiden,
And she follows where he leads her,
Leaving all things for the stranger! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow