19th-century Poet Quotes

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with green festoons The banks of dark lagoons.

Like to a stone
That rolls down a hill,
I have come to this day.

Takuboku Ishikawa

The white man had come with the Bible in one hand, the bottle in the other.

E. Pauline Johnson

I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!

Georgia Douglas Johnson

LUCIFER: Only the chemistry of love can make Two atoms one.

The light died out and left the sky,
We sighed and rose and said good-bye,
We had forgotten — He and I,
That he was dead, that I must die.

Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children;…whose life was an inspiration, whose memory a benediction.

Bessie Anderson Stanley

In all the good Greek of Plato
I lack my roastbeef and potato.

A better man was Aristotle,
Pulling steady on the bottle.

John Crowe Ransom

Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,
Who was the Future, died full long ago.
Knowledge which is the Past is folly.

Trumbull Stickney

The children eat and wriggle and laugh,
The two old ladies stroke their silk;
But the cat is grown small and thin with desire,
Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.

Wales, Wales, sweet are thy hills and vales,
Thy speech, thy song,
To thee belong,
O may they live ever in Wales.

What men have done can still be done
And shall be done today.

I know that no reader ever asks a question. A writer must force his favors upon his readers.

Is life worth living? Aye, with the best of us, Heights of us, depths of us- Life is the test of us!

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.

Ellen Sturgis Hooper

An age being mathematical, these flowers Of linear stalks and spheroid blooms were prized.

The mere collection of facts, without some basis of theory for guidance and elucidation, is foolish and profitless.

Gamaliel Bradford (biographer)

We knew thee of old,
O divinely restored,
By the light of thine eyes And the light of thy sword.
From the graves of our slain Shall thy valor prevail As we greet thee again—
Hail, Liberty! Hail!

Dionysios Solomos

Oh, whoever has been himself alone can never find another's loneliness strange.

Robert Walser (writer)

To a nice ear, the quality of a voice is singularly affecting. Its depth seems to be allied to feeling; at least, the contralto notes alone give an adequate sense of pathos. They are born near the heart.

Henry Theodore Tuckerman

What a shame that love has no dictionary in which to ascertain when pride is simply pride and when it's 'dignity'!

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

" Tis plain to me
As A B C,
My dear friend, Mr. Neff!"
"Oh, yes! but then,"
Says Mr. N,
"You know I'm D E F!"

Charles Follen Adams

Here come the Slavophiles and Nihilists, and none of them have clean fingernails.

Don Carlos was one of those peaceful and indolent men who do not know how to do evil, nor to go to great lengths to do good.

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me;
If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.

William Ellery Channing (poet)