John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

What airs outblown from ferny dells And clover-bloom and sweet brier smells.

With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb!

What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth or ease,
Or heaping up dust from year to year?
"Nay, none of these!"
Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight,
Whose eye looks still
And steadily on thee through the night;
"To do His will!

Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Re-clothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence praise

Let the thick curtain fall;I better know than allHow little I have gained,How vast the unattained.

With our sympathy for the wrongdoer we need the old Puritan and Quaker hatred of wrongdoing; with our just tolerance of men and opinions a righteous abhorrence of sin.

In kindly showers and sunshine bud The branches of the dull gray wood; Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks The blue eye of the violet looks.

O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk.

Every chain that spirits wear crumbles in the breadth of prayer.

The good is always beautiful, the beautiful is good!

God should be most where man is least: So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag nor form of creed To clothe the nakedness of need,- Where farmer folk in silence meet,- I turn my bell-unsummoned feet; I lay the critic's glass aside, I tread upon my lettered pride, And, lowest-seated, testify To the oneness of humanity; Confess the universal want, And share whatever Heaven may grant. He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone.

Nature speaks in symbols and in signs.

Truth is one;
And, in all lands beneath the sun,
Whoso hath eyes to see may see
The tokens of its unity.

His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than in words, was simply doing good.

The laws of changeless justice bind oppressor and oppressed; and, close as sin and suffering joined we march to fate abreast.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,
A universe of sky and snow!

The still, sad music of humanity.

Autumn, in his leafless bowers, is waiting for the winter's snow.

Simple duty hath no place for fear.

We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But dim or clear, we own in Him The life, the truth, the way.

And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief; Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief.

Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold: Once more with harvest song and shout Is nature's boldest triumph told.

The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit-
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit

For still the new transcends the old In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves!

A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.

Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.

The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in.

The Fates are just: they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.

Few have borne unconsciously the spell of loveliness.

The smile of God is victory.

Through the open door A drowsy smell of flowers -grey heliotrope And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette Comes fairly in, and silent chorus leads To the pervading symphony of Peace.

God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed.

All day the darkness and the cold
Upon my heart have lain
Like shadows on the winter sky
Like frost upon the pane

And sweet and far as from a star, replied a voice which shall not cease, till drowning all the noise of war, it sings the blessed song of peace

Man is more than constitutions.

A little smile, a word of cheer, A bit of love from someone near, A little gift from one held dear, Best wishes for the coming year. These make a merry christmas!

The low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings.

And one there was, a dreamer born,
Who, with a mission to fulfill,
Had left the Muses' haunts to turn
The crank of an opinion-mill,
Making his rustic reed of song
A weapon in the war with wrong, ...
A Tent on the Beach

One brave deed makes no hero.

Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a woman whom the world called beautiful. Through its silver veil the evil and ungentle passions looked out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude, at first glance, pronounce homely, unattractive and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill. Not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories, and are beautiful through their associations.

Somewhat of goodness, something true
From sun and spirit shining through
All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark
Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark,
Attests the presence everywhere
Of love and providential care.

God's colors all are fast.

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard! Heap high the golden corn! No richer gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish horn!

It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.

Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck!

It is well for us if we have learned to listen to the sweet persuasion of the Beatitudes, but there are crises in all lives which require also the emphatic "Thou shalt not" of the decalogue which the founders wrote on the gateposts of their commonwealth.

I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be,
The first low wash of waves where soon
Shall roll a human sea.

Beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast.

Clothe with life the weak intent, Let me be the thing I meant ...

I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond his love and care.

The hope of all earnest souls must be realized.

The dreariest spot in all the land to Death they set apart; with scanty grace from Nature's hand, and none from that of Art.

Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants at tree, is more than all.

Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.

A felon's cell
The fittest earthly type of hell!

And I will trust that He who heeds
The life that hides in mead and wold,
Who hangs you alder's crimson beads,
And stains these mosses green and gold,
Will still, as He hath done, incline
His gracious care to me and mine.

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn

A charmed life old goodness hath; the tares may perish, but the grain is not for death.

Life's sunniest hours are not without
The shadow of some lingering doubt
Amid its brightest joys will steal
Spectres of evil yet to feel
Its warmest love is blent with fears,
Its confidence a trembling one
Its smile
the harbinger of tears
Its hope
the change of April's sun!
A weary lot
in mercy given,
To fit the chastened soul for heaven.

Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man! He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still.

Low stir of leaves and dip of oars And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

So let it be in God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons he has given,
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.

If we write at all, why not use our talents to the best advantage?

With warning hand I mark Time's rapid flight,
From Life's glad morning to its solemn night;
Yet, through the dear Lord's love, I also show
There's light above me by the shade I throw.

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the epic's stately rhyme, But spare his "Highland Mary!"

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Flowers spring to blossom where she walks
The careful ways of duty;
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty.

But let the good old corn adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for his golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!

God's providence is not blind, but full of eyes.

Rest if you must, but never quit.

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye? What calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie?

We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From all old flower fields of the soul; And, weary seeker of the best, We come back laden from out quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.

Oh, talk as we may of beauty as a thing to be chiselled from marble or wrought out on canvas, speculate as we may upon its colors and outlines, what is it but an intellectual abstraction, after all? The heart feels a beauty of another kind; looking through the outward environment, it discovers a deeper and more real love-liness.

From the death of the old the new proceeds, and the life of truth from the death of creeds.

And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace.

The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

The age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk; with blood too pale and tame To pay the debt they owe to shame; Buy cheap, sell dear; eat. drink, and sleep down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep Six days to Mammon, one to Cant

And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!

No longer forward or behind
I look in hope or fear,
But grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

Oh, for boyhood's painless play, sleep that wakes in laughing day, health that mocks the doctor's rules, knowledge never learned of schools.

When earth as if on evil dreams Looks back upon her wars, And the white light of Christ outstreams From the red disc of Mars, His fame, who led the stormy van Of battle, well may cease; But never that which crowns the man Whose victory was peace.

There is religion in everything around us, - a calm and holy religion in the unbreathing things of Nature, which man would do well to imitate.

Romance is always young.

Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.

And step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man.

The simple heart that freely asks in love, obtains.

Sometimes it seems as if the universe wants to be noticed!!!

Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease; Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing the glory to God and of good-will to man!

What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored.

If woman lost us Eden, such As she alone restore it.

Again the blackbirds sings; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers.

O Time and change! - with hair as gray as was my sire's that winter day, how strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!

What does the good ship bear so well? The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, And the milky sap of its inner cell.

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.

Despair is infidelity and death.

Beneath the winter's snow lie germs of summer flowers.