Henry wadsworth longfellow quotes

Defeat may be victory in disguise.

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

They who go Feel not the pain of parting; it is they Who stay behind that suffer.

Today is the blocks with which we build.

If you once understand an author's character, the comprehension of his writings becomes easy.

Every author has the whole past to contend with; all the centuries are upon him. He is compared with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton.

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

Softly the evening came /with the sunset/.

Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.

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

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it.

Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us.

Perseverance is a great element of success.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

The pleasant books, that silently among Our household treasures take familiar places, And are to us as if a living tongue Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces!

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken.

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

I hear the wind among the trees Playing the celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.

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

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.

It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.

There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.

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.

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.

All your strength in is your union. All your danger is in discord. Therefore be at peace henceforward, And as brothers live together.

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

The happy should not insist too much upon their happiness in the presence of the unhappy.

The soul...is audible, not visible.

A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.

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 best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

Resolve and thou art free.

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.

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

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

The things that have been and shall be no more, The things that are, and that hereafter shall be, The things that might have been, and yet were not, The fading twilight of joys departed.

Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.

Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest.

Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends.

In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.

A life that is worth writing at all is worth writing minutely.

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

No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving.

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.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

He looks the whole world in the face for he owes not any man.

Nature paints not; In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven; With sunsets, and the lovely forms of clouds; And flying vapors.

When Christ ascended Triumphantly from star to star He left the gates of Heaven ajar.

So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest.

Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause.

Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.

Nothing is or can be accidental with God.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do, well.

Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.

The sea hath its pearls The heaven hath its stars But my heart, my heart Has its love.

Sometimes we may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues.

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

Three silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.

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!

Perseverance 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.

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm.

The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight.

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.

Tomorrow is the mysterious, unknown guest.

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

When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.

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

Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor's nose.

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

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.

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.

Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act -- act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.

Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of God.

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

Where should the scholar live? In solitude, or in society? in the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of Nature beat, or in the dark, gray town where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man?

What discord we should bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered. Then we should govern the world and not God. And do you think we should govern it better? It gives me only pain when I hear the long, wearisome petitions of people asking for they know not what. . . . Thanks-giving with a full heart-and the rest silence and submission to the divine will!

Man is always more than he can know of himself; consequently, his accomplishments, time and again, will come as a surprise to him.

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

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.

Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate, Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

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.

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.

And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives.

Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.

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.

How beautiful the silent hour, when morning and evening thus sit together, hand in hand, beneath the starless sky of midnight!

I am the Angel of the Sun Whose flaming wheels began to run When God's almighty breath Said to the darkness and the Night, Let there be light! and there was light.

Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.

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

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

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

All things must change To something new, to something strange.

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

Our hearts are lamps for ever burning.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Dead he is not, but departed, for the artist never dies.

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

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.

The student has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world and the glories of a modern one.

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

In youth all doors open outward; in old age all open inward.

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

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.

Art is the child of Nature.

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.

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.

Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.

Oh the long and dreary Winter! Oh the cold and cruel Winter!

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

The human voice is the organ of the soul.

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

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.

The nearer the dawn the darker the night.

Weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle; but the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and struggles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds.