Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

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The atmosphere breathes rest and comfort, and the many chambers seem full of welcomes.

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Forth then issued Hiawatha, Wandered eastward, wandered westward, Teaching men the use of simples And the antidotes for poisons, And the cure of all diseases. Thus was first made known to mortals All the mystery of Medamin, All the sacred art of healing.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All things are symbols: the external shows Of Nature have their image in the mind, As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
There is no light in earth or heaven but the cold light of stars; and the first watch of night is given to the red planet Mars.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
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
The nimble lie
Is like the second-hand upon a clock;
We see it fly; while the hour-hand of truth
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,
And wins, at last, for the clock will not strike
Till it has reached the goal.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Like black hulks the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A stiff letter galls one like a stiff shirt collar -- whilst a sheet garnished here and there with a careless blot -- and here and there a dash -- but in the main full of excellent matter, is like a clever fellow in a dirty shirt whom we value for the good humour he brings with him and not for the garb he wears.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
I hear the Scales, where hang in equipoise The night and day.

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
The things that have been and shall be no more, The things that are, and that hereafter shall be, The things that might have been, and yet were not, The fading twilight of joys departed.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, Only the empty nests are left behind, And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes and roofs of villages, on woodland crests and their aerial neighborhoods of nests deserted, on the curtained window-panes of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes and harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O lovely eyes of azure, Clear as the waters of a brook that run Limpid and laughing in the summer sun!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Buried was the bloody hatchet; Buried was the dreadful war-club; Buried were all warlike weapons, And the war-cry was forgotten. Then was peace among the nations.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The heaven of poetry and romance still lies around us and within us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The true poet is a friendly man. He takes to his arms even cold and inanimate things, and rejoices in his heart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Our ingress into the world Was naked and bare; Our progress through the world Is trouble and care.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nature with folded hand seemed there, Kneeling at her evening prayer!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye-not creation, but insight.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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