Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

488 Sourced Quotes

The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You behold in me Only a traveling Physician; One of the few who have a mission To cure incurable diseases, Or those that are called so.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Two ways the rivers Leap down to different seas, and as they roll Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence Becomes a benefaction to the towns They visit, wandering silently among them, Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Decide not rashly. The decision made
Can never be recalled. The gods implore not,
Plead not, solicit not; they only offer
Choice and occasion, which once being passed
Return no more. Dost thou accept the gift?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In December ring Every day the chimes; Loud the gleemen sing In the streets their merry rhymes. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dreams or illusions, call them what you will, they lift us from the commonplace of life to better things.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail. And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How in the turmoil of life can love stand,
Where there is not one heart, and one mouth and one hand.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
God's voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature, That fashions all her works in high relief, And that is Sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth, Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire; Men, women, and all animals that breathe Are statues, and not paintings.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A man must be of a very quiet and happy nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well contented with his own insignificant person.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, In sombre harness mailed, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, The rampart wall has scaled. He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, The dark and silent room, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, The silence and the gloom.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sang in tones of deep emotion Songs of love and songs of longing.

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
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Beautiful in form and feature, lovely as the day, can there be so fair a creature formed of common clay?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nature paints not; In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven; With sunsets, and the lovely forms of clouds; And flying vapors.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Magnificent autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds; not like a hermit, clad in gray; but like a warrior with the stain of blood in his brazen mail.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The tide rises, the tide falls, The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul. The intellect of man is enthroned visibly on his forehead and in his eye, and the heart of man is written on his countenance, but the soul, the soul reveals itself in the voice only.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is universal.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Perhaps the chief cause which has retarded the progress of poetry in America, is the want of that exclusive cultivation, which so noble a branch of literature would seem to require. Few here think of relying upon the exertion of poetic talent for a livelihood, and of making literature the profession of life. The bar or the pulpit claims the greater part of the scholar's existence, and poetry is made its pastime.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow