Longfellow Quotes

All things are symbols. ~ 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

Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And oft the blessed time foretells
When all men shall be free;
And musical, as silver bells,
Their falling chains shall be. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You would attain to the divine perfection. ~ 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

Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nothing is or can be accidental with God. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The mind of the scholar, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armor should be somewhat bruised by rude encounters even, than hang forever rusting on the wall. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Into a world unknown,-the corner-stone of a nation! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Your education begins where what is called your education is over.
Your fate is but the common lot of all. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The nimble lie
Is like the second-hand upon a clock;
We see it fly; while the hour-hand of truth
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,
And wins, at last, for the clock will not strike
Till it has reached the goal. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.
How far, since then, the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!
Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Orcades,
Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?
Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while
We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest. ~ 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

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love, and those who love us!
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old and lean upon them,
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,
With his flute of reeds, a stranger
Wanders piping through the village,
Beckons to the fairest maiden,
And she follows where he leads her,
Leaving all things for the stranger! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A word that has been said may be unsaid-it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast. ~ 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

So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wiseRound their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Unasked, Unsought, Love gives itself but is not bought ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Time has a doomsday book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters never to be effaced. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere
"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly, ~ 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

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Every human heart is human. ~ 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 hear the wind among the trees playing the celestial symphonies. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o'er our fears, are all with thee – are all with thee! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Only priests and politicians benefit from a people's ignorance. ~ Ki Longfellow

The soul never grows old. ~ 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

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

Bell, thou soundest merrily, When the bridal party To the church doth hie! Bell, thou soundest solemnly, When, on Sabbath morning, Fields deserted lie! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I can't believe that we are calculating the amount of light years used to travel Space-Chase Model 3.0 to Pluto!" shrieked Alice, bouncing up and down in a totally undignified way for her 14-year-old self. "I'm sure what you just said makes perfect sense to you." grumbled Olivia,as she glared at the marble-white,slippery floor of the CAST lobby. Alice stared at her with aggravation. She'd once read a book on face reading, and Olivia's emotions rung clear- It wasn't fair that she was here,and not at home,downloading a hot new song on iTunes or something. Everybody here was totally spaced out. ~ Chloe Gadsby-Jones

A life that is worth writing at all is worth writing minutely. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Age is opportunity no less than youth itself. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Will without power is like children playing at soldiers. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some must follow and some command, through all are made oclay. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As the heart is, so is love to the heart. It partakes of its strength or weakness, its health or disease. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Perserverence is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

White swan of cities slumbering in thy nest ... White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky. ~ 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

How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays? ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes! O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain, Ye shall be loved again. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Death is the chillness that precedes the dawn; We shudder for a moment, then awake In the broad sunshine of the other life. ~ 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

The most important concept ever put forth was that matter, ALL matter, with no exceptions from stone to star to starfish to student to sovereign, is as divine as all else in the cosmos, for all flows from Consciousness, the Word that came before the World - and all, in time, will flow back. ~ Ki Longfellow

Hope has as many lives as a cat or a king. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some feelings are quite untranslatable; no language has yet been found for them. They gleam upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet when we bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason, lose their beauty all at once, as glow worms which gleam with such a spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in where the candles are lighted, are found to be only worms like so many others. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When Christ ascended Triumphantly from star to star He left the gates of Heaven ajar. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The kind of poetry to avoid in the pretty-pretty kind that pleased our grandmothers, the kind that Longfellow and Tennyson, good poets at their best, wrote at their worst. ~ Clifton Fadiman

Ah! What would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Very hot and still the air was, Very smooth the gliding river, Motionless the sleeping shadows. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O little feet! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load; I, nearer to the wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When thou are not pleased, beloved, Then my heart is sad and darkened, As the shining river darkens When the clouds drop shadows on it! When thou smilest, my beloved, Then my troubled heart is brightened, As in sunshine gleam the ripples That the cold wind makes in rivers. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... people believe what they are told. I believe nothing, consider everything. ~ Ki Longfellow

The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service. ~ 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

Then stars arise, and the night is holy. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

She floats upon the river of his thoughts. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's an unspoken requirement that women who choose to look after children for a living have a strong liking for all manner of creatures. ~Millie Longfellow ~ Jen Turano

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight but, they while their companions slept, they were toiling upwards in the night. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There's nothing in this world so sweet as love. And next to love the sweetest thing is hate. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but at length they are overturned by the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by the growth of forest-trees, whose seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined walls. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A mind may know a thing, the spirit may embrace it, but the voice that chatters in the head clings ever to shameful beliefs. ~ Ki Longfellow

It is true, that it is not at all necessary to love many books, in order to love them much. ~ 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

We have not wings we cannot soar; but, we have feet to scale and climb, by slow degrees, by more and more, the cloudy summits of our time. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Poor, deluded Shawondasee!
'T was no woman that you gazed at,
'T was no maiden that you sighed for,
'T was the prairie dandelion
That through all the dreamy Summer
You had gazed at with such longing,
You had sighed for with such passion,
And had puffed away forever,
Blown into the air with sighing.
Ah! deluded Shawondasee! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Great is the art of beginning. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Endymion

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stayed so long? ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

No one is so accursed by fate, no one so utterly desolate, but some heart though unknown responds unto his own. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

People demand freedom only when they have no power. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I love thee, as the good love heaven. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Then come and as we lay, beside this sleepy glade, there I will sing to you my Longfellow serenade. ~ Neil Diamond

Big words do not smite like war-clubs, Boastful breath is not a bow-string, Taunts are not so sharp as arrows, Deeds are better things than words are, Actions mightier than boastings. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O, never from the memory of my heart
Your dear, paternal image shall depart,
Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,
Taught me how mortals are immortalized;
How grateful am I for that patient care
All my life long my language shall declare. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The moon is hidden behind a cloud ... On the leaves is a sound of falling rain ... No other sounds than these I hear; The hour of midnight must be near ... So many ghosts, and forms of fright, Have started from their graves to-night, They have driven sleep from mine eyes away: I will go down to the chapel and pray. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To be strong is to be happy! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The swallow is come! The swallow is come! O, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she brings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is no light in earth or heaven but the cold light of stars; and the first watch of night is given to the red planet Mars. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In what a forge and what a heat were shaped the anchors of thy hope! Fear not each sudden sound and shock; 'Tis of the wave and not the rock. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All was silent as before - All silent save the dripping rain. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Many a poem is marred by a superfluous word. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

These stars of earth, these golden flowers. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The greatest grace of a gift, perhaps, is that it anticipates and admits of no return. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow