Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

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The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Nature ; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A town that boasts inhabitants like me
Can have no lack of good society.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
Of Florence Nightingale

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
And see! she stirs!
She starts,—she moves,—she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of Beginnings, Story without End, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All was silent as before - All silent save the dripping rain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You know I say just what I think, and nothing more and less. I cannot say one thing and mean another.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
"Forever — never!
Never — forever!"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oh, There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love - the first fluttering of its silken wings - the first rising sound and breath of that wind which is so soon to sweep through the soul, to purify or to destroy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto his glory.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Races, better than we, have leaned on her wavering promise,
Having naught else but Hope.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Death is the chillness that precedes the dawn; We shudder for a moment, then awake In the broad sunshine of the other life.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The hearts of some women tremble like leaves at every breath of love which reaches them, and they are still again. Others, like the ocean, are moved only by the breath of a storm, and not so easily lulled to rest.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To say the least, a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgment of others.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The pleasant books, that silently among Our household treasures take familiar places, And are to us as if a living tongue Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but at length they are overturned by the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by the growth of forest-trees, whose seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined walls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Every author has the whole past to contend with; all the centuries are upon him. He is compared with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Though on the frigid scorpion I ride, The dreamy air is full, and overflows With tender memories of the summer-tide And mingled voices of the doves and crows.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow