Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

488 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oh, well it has been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak.

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

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

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
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 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
Every man must patiently bide his time. He must wait — not in listless idleness but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavors, always willing and fulfilling and accomplishing his task, that when the occasion comes he may be equal to the occasion.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We often excuse our own want of philanthropy by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ardent zeal of others.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And now, my classmates; ye remaining few
That number not the half of those we knew,
Ye, against whose familiar names not yet
The fatal asterisk of death is set,
Ye I salute!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
He spoke well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, — the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thus, seamed with many scars
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!
—Thus the tale ended.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I am weary of your quarrels, Weary of your wars and bloodshed, Weary of your prayers for vengeance, Of your wranglings and dissensions

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow