Top 694 Quotes & Sayings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Page 2

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.

I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.

The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.

Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.

Resolve and thou art free.

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.

The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.

Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

It is a beautiful trait in the lover's character, that they think no evil of the object loved.

As to the pure mind all things are pure, so to the poetic mind all things are poetical.

Evil is only good perverted.

Ah, Nothing is too late, till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

Perseverance is a great element of success.

Softly the evening came /with the sunset/.

Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever condition you may find yourselves.

Success is not something to wait for, it is something to work for.

Let us labor for an inward stillness-- An inward stillness and an inward healing. That perfect silence where the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, But God alone speaks to us and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our spirits, That we may do His will and do that only

If we love one another, nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen.

Nothing with God can be accidental.

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.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall

When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but shows it.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

From dust thou art to dust returneth, was not spoken of the soul.

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.

Men are four; He who knows and knows not that he knows. He is asleep; wake him. He who knows not and knows not that he knows not. He is a fool; shun him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not. He is a child; teach him. He who knows and knows that he knows. He is a king; follow him. The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

Nothing is or can be accidental with God.

Love is the root of creation; God's essence; worlds without number Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose only. Only to love and to be loved again.

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o’er our fears, are all with thee – are all with thee!

Difficulty on the way to victory is opportunity for God to work

The spring came suddenly, bursting upon the world as a child bursts into a room, with a laugh and a shout and hands full of flowers.

The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable.

Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory.

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.

Quotes about Life Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art; to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Give what you have. To some one, it may be better than you dare to think.

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

The great tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still in him.

The heart, like the mind, has a memory. And in it are kept the most precious keepsakes.

Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends.

Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest; Home-keeping hearts are the happiest, For those that wander they know not where Are full of trouble and full of care; To stay at home is best.

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm.

Youth comes but once a life time. Perhaps, but it remains strong in many for their entire lives.

The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye-not creation, but insight.

To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.

Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.

If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone.

And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!