Top 180 Quotes & Sayings by John Greenleaf Whittier

I'll lift you and you lift me, and we'll both ascend together.

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.

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.

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

When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.

Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.

All the windows of my heart I open to the day.

God's colors all are fast.

Peace hath higher tests of manhood, than battle ever knew.

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

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.

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

Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.

The smile of God is victory.

One brave deed makes no hero.

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!

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

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

The child must teach the man.

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.

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

The slave will be free. Democracy in America will yet be a glorious reality; and when the top-stone of that temple of freedom which our fathers left unfinished shall be brought forth with shoutings and cries of grace unto it, when our now drooping Liberty lifts up her head and prospers, happy will he be who can say, with John Milton, "Among those who have something more than wished her welfare, I, too, have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs."

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 saddest thing of word or pen, To know the things that might have been.

At what point does a man turn into a monster? I don’t believe that it’s when he does horrible things, but when he accepts that he’s able to do them, and that he does them well.

Green calm below, blue quietness above.

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

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

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

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

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

The green earth sends her incense up. From many a mountain shrine; From folded leaf and dewey cup She pours her sacred wine.

We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our Future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.

Truth should be the first lesson of the child and the last aspiration of manhood; for it has been well said that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

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.

The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.

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

Who never wins can rarely lose, Who never climbs as rarely falls

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.

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

The garden rose may richly bloom In cultured soil and genial air, To cloud the light of Fashion's room Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair, In lonelier grace, to sun and dew The sweetbrier on the hillside shows Its single leaf and fainter hue, Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose!

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

The simple heart that freely asks in love, obtains.

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.

We live by faith; but Faith is not the slave Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God's, Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save Justice and mercy and humility, A reasonable service of good deeds, Pure living, tenderness to human needs, Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see The Master's footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, But the calm beauty of an ordered life Whose very breathing is unworded praise! - A life that stands as all true lives have stood Firm-rooted in the faith that God is Good.

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.

Rest if you must, but never quit.

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

Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loveth all his works, Has left his Hope with all.

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

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

A true life is at once interpreter and proof of the gospel.

Thee lift me, and I lift thee, and together we ascend.

Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The Rock beneath.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good!

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

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