Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

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No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly, As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The low desire, the base design
That makes another's virtues less.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
But the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages, Brighter grows and gleams immortal, Unconsumed by moth or rust.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You call them thieves and pillagers; but know, They are the winged wardens of yours farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
By unseen hands uplifted in the light Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad, And wafted up to heaven.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The bells themselves are the best of preachers, Their brazen lips are learned teachers, From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air, Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw, Shriller than trumpets under the Law, Now a sermon and now a prayer.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
Beneath me flows the Rhine, and like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of the Past.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of ours, when spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy cloud-sails and the misty pennon of the east-wind nailed to the mast.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Welcome, Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend. Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice of a friend. Oh, there is something sublime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without complaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Would'st thou, — so the helmsman answered, Learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive in what they do than the approbation of men, which is fame, namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All sense of hearing and of sight enfold in the serene delight and quietude of sleep.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river Linger to kiss thy feet! 0 flower of song, bloom on, and make forever The world more fair and sweet.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If you once understand an author's character, the comprehension of his writings becomes easy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What discord should we bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered! Then we should govern the world, and not God. And do you think we should govern it better?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O ye dead Poets, who are living still Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, And ye, O living Poets, who are dead Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, With drops of anguish falling fast and red From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head, Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from the meadow, See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as the magnet; This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has planted Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's journey. Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert, Such in the soul of man is faith.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All the means of action - the shapeless masses - the materials - lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word* Wait!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The happy should not insist too much upon their happiness in the presence of the unhappy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The picture that approaches sculpture nearest Is the best picture.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer time, But in the winter's frost and rime! O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Love is the root of creation; God's essence; worlds without number Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose only. Only to love and to be loved again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow