Top 100 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
#2. With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#5. O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river Linger to kiss thy feet! O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever The world more fair and sweet.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#9. I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady lambent light, are luminous, but not sparkling.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#12. Our blossoms of passion, gay and luxuriant flowers, are bright and full of fragrance, but they beguile us and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#15. Whoever benefits his enemy with straightforward intention that man's enemies will soon fold their hands in devotion.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#16. Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#18. They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#20. Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#21. Oh, what a glory doth this world put on, for him who with a fervent heart goes forth under the bright and glorious sky, and looks on duties well performed, and days well spent.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#23. And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
and silently steal away.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#24. 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
#25. The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#26. See yonder fire! It is the moon slow rising o'er the eastern hill. It glimmers on the forest tips, and through the dewy foliage drips In little rivulets of light, and makes the heart in love with night.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#30. Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#34. Each new epoch in life seems an encounter. There is a tussle and a cloud of dust, and we come out of it triumphant or crest-fallen, according as we have borne ourselves.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#35. No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly, As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#37. Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#39. Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#40. It is autumn; not without But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#43. Not chance of birth or place has made us friends, Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations, But the endeavor for the selfsame ends, With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#44. Great men die and are forgotten,
Wise men speak; their words of wisdom
Perish in the ears that hear them,
Do not reach the generations
That, as yet unborn, are waiting
In the great, mysterious darkness
Of the speechless days that shall be!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#45. Some critics are like chimney-sweepers; they put out the fire below, and frighten the swallows from their nests above; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing from the top of the house as if they had built it.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#48. These are the woes of Slaves;
They glare from the abyss;
They cry, from unknown graves,
We are the Witnesses!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#50. Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever condition you may find yourselves.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#52. Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing,
As in a foundering ship.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#55. 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
#57. Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays To cover up the embers that still burn.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#58. In December ring Every day the chimes; Loud the gleemen sing In the streets their merry rhymes. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#63. Youth wrenches the sceptre from old age, and sets the crown on its own head before it is entitled to it.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#64. In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#65. I have a passion for ballad ... They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,
in the genial Summertime.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#66. Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#67. Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#69. Then from the neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#71. If thou art worn and hard beset,
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget;
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#72. We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#73. A word that has been said may be unsaid-it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#76. If spring came but once a century instead of once a year, or
burst forth with the sound of an earthquake and not in
silence, what wonder and expectation there would be
in all the hearts to behold the miraculous change.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#77. Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#79. 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
#80. And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler, Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#84. As Unto the bow the the cord is ,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him , yet she follows:
Useless each without the other.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#86. Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For oh, it is not always May!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#87. See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away Over the snowy peaks!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#91. O lovely river of Yvette!
O darling river! like a bride,
Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette
Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide.
O lovely river Yvette!
O darling stream! on balanced wings
The wood-birds sang the chansonnette
That here a wandering poet sings.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#92. The sun is set; and in his latest beams Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#94. What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries-these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself. Time is the Life of the Soul.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#96. I promise myself great pleasure from my visit to England. You know I am to stay with Dickens while in London; and beside his own very agreeable society, I shall enjoy that of the most noted literary men of the day, which will be a great gratification to me.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#97. The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath, While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#100. Fame grows like a tree if it have the principle of growth in it; the accumulated dews of ages freshen its leaves.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
