Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Life Quotes

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The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection — itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars arise, and the night is holy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries-these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself. Time is the Life of the Soul.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the heat and drenched by the rain of life.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow,
Life is checkered shade and sunshine.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For it is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence. Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers Runnng through caverns of darkness...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
She knew the life-long martyrdom,
The weariness, the endless pain
Of waiting for some one to come
Who nevermore would come again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Look, then, into thine heart, and write! Yes, into Life's deep stream! All forms of sorrow and delight, All solemn Voices of the Night, That can soothe thee, or affright, - Be these henceforth thy theme. (excerpt from "Voices of the Night")

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When we reflect that all the aspects of Nature, all the emotions of the soul, and all the events of life, have been the subjects of poetry for hundreds and thousands of years, we can hardly wonder that there should be so many resemblances and coincidences of expression among poets, but rather that they are not more numerous and more striking.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The scholar and the world! The endless strife,
The discord in the harmonies of life!
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books;
The market-place, the eager love of gain,
Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright. The house is full of life and light.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow