Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

488 Sourced Quotes

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
God sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A life that is worth writing at all is worth writing minutely.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame Bums less intensely than the Lion's rage; Sheaves are my only garments, and I claim A golden harvest as my heritage.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Now the zephyrs diminish the cold, and the year being ended, Winter Maeotian seems longer than ever before; And the Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle, Now makes the hours of the day equal with those of the night.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
St. Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
Winter giveth the fields, and the trees so old,
their beards of icicles and snow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Many have genius, but, wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face — the face of one long dead —
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Shepherds at the grange, Where the Babe was born, Sang with many a change, Christmas carols until morn.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This song of mine
Is a song of the vine
To be sung by the glowing embers
Of wayside inns,
When the rain begins
To darken the drear Novembers. and
For the richest and best
Is the wind of the West
That grows by the Beautiful River;
Whose sweet perfume
Fills all the room
With a bension on the giver. and
When you ask one friend to dine,
Give hime your best wine!
When you ask two,
The second best will do.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow