Top 100 Longfellow's Quotes
#1. Others live on in a careless and lukewarm state - not appearing to fill Longfellow's measure: 'Into each life, some rain must fall.'
Mary Todd Lincoln
#2. I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#3. Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings The Spring, clothed like a bride, When nestling buds unfold their wings, And bishop's-caps have golden rings, Musing upon many things, I sought the woodlands wide.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#5. 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
#7. After a day of cloud and wind and rain Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again, And touching all the darksome woods with light, Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing, Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring, Drops down into the night.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#8. There's not a ship that sails the ocean, But every climate, every soil, Must bring its tribute, great or small, And help to build the wooden wall!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#9. 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
#10. 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.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#11. The emigrant's way o'er the western desert is mark'd by
Camp-fires long consum'd and bones that bleach in the sunshine.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#13. They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast, And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#16. Thus, seamed with many scars Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior's soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal! Thus the tale ended.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#20. Whoever benefits his enemy with straightforward intention that man's enemies will soon fold their hands in devotion.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#21. 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.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#22. It's an unspoken requirement that women who choose to look after children for a living have a strong liking for all manner of creatures. ~Millie Longfellow
Jen Turano
#23. 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
#24. Kind messages, that pass from land to land; Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history, In which we feel the pressure of a hand,
One touch of fire,
and all the rest is mystery!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#25. Prayer is innocence's friend; and willingly flieth incessant 'twist the earth and the sky, the carrier-pigeon of heaven.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#27. 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
#28. Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Yes, into Life's deep stream!
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
That can soothe thee, or affright, -
Be these henceforth thy theme.
(excerpt from "Voices of the Night")
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#29. 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
#30. Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#31. Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head. And shouts ascend on high ... ' Long live Scanderbeg.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#32. 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
#33. God's voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#34. It is Lucifer, The son of mystery; And since God suffers him to be, He too, is God's minister, And labors for some good By us not understood.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#35. A great sorrow, like a mariner's quadrant, brings the sun at noon down to the horizon, and we learn where we are on the sea of life.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#36. 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!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#37. 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
#39. As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#40. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#41. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#42. O holy trust! O endless sense of rest! Like the beloved John To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast, And thus to journey on!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#43. 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
#45. O Music! language of the soul, Of love, of God to man; Bright beam from heaven thrilling, That lightens sorrow's weight.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#46. Only priests and politicians benefit from a people's ignorance.
Ki Longfellow
#47. There in seclusion and remote from men The wizard hand lies cold, Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, And left the tale half told. Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#49. Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#50. For 'tis sweet to stammer one letter
Of the Eternal's language; - on earth it is called Forgiveness!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#51. If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#52. Sail forth into the sea of life, O gentle, loving, trusting wife, And safe from all adversity Upon the bosom of that sea Thy comings and thy goings be! For gentleness and love and trust Prevail o'er angry wave and gust; And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#57. Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#59. Oh, how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless, yet unclouded, day, descending upon earth with dews and shadows and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites today with yesterday!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#60. Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act
act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#66. 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
#68. Burn, O evening hearth, and waken Pleasant visions, as of old! Though the house by winds be shaken, Safe I keep this room of gold!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#69. Man is always more than he can know of himself; consequently, his accomplishments, time and again, will come as a surprise to him.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#73. Among the noblest in the land - Though man may count himself the least - That man I honor and revere, Who without favor, without fear, In the great city dares to stand, The friend of every friendless beast.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#74. Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
The frontier town and citadel of night!
The watershed of Time, from which the streams
Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,
One to the land of promise and of light,
One to the land of darkness and of dreams!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#76. More and more do I feel, as I advance in life, how little we really know of each other. Friendship seems to me like the touch of musical-glasses
it is only contact; but the glasses themselves, and their contents, remain quite distinct and unmingled.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#77. Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,
When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,
Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,
But never will be sung to us again,
Is they remembrance. Now the hour of rest
Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling: it is best.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#79. I found unconventional and it exactly explains your upbringing." Millie's lips curved into a grin. "Unconstitutional doesn't explain you at all, unless you've been participating in something that goes against our country's constitution.
Jen Turano
#80. A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#81. Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature, That fashions all her works in high relief, And that is Sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth, Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire; Men, women, and all animals that breathe Are statues, and not paintings.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#82. O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#85. He had mittens, Minjekahwun, Magic mittens made of deer-skin; When upon his hands he wore them, He could smite the rocks asunder, He could grind them into powder.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#87. Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#88. Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word* Wait!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#91. The mind of the scholar, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armor should be somewhat bruised by rude encounters even, than hang forever rusting on the wall.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#92. Patience; accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of affection! Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike. Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made godlike, Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of heaven!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#96. So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wiseRound their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#97. As the heart is, so is love to the heart. It partakes of its strength or weakness, its health or disease.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#99. For bells are the voice of the church; They have tones that touch and search The hearts of young and old.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#100. Sweet April! many a thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed; Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought, Life's golden fruit is shed.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
