Best 636 quotes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on MyQuotes

Were a star quenched on high,For ages would its light,Still travelling downward from the sky,Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies,For years beyond our ken,The light he leaves behind him liesUpon the paths of men.

Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.

We waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into potions which, after all, do not immortalize, but only intoxicate.

What child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of ours, when spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy cloud-sails and the misty pennon of the east-wind nailed to the mast.

What discord should we 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?

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!

Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age.

What else remains for me? Youth, hope and love; To build a new life on a ruined life.

Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.

What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight, the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest, when we think of those we love only to regret that we have not loved them more dearly, when we remember our enemies only to forgive them.

What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries-these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself. Time is the Life of the Soul.

What seems to us but dim funeral tapers may be heaven's distant lamps.

What shall I say to you? What can I say Better than silence is?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

When you ask one friend to dine, Give him your best wine! When you ask two, The second best will do!

Where'er a noble deed is wrought, Where'er is spoken a noble thought, Our hearts in glad surprise To higher levels rise.

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?

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.

Who dares To say that he alone has found the truth?

Whoever benefits his enemy with straightforward intention that man's enemies will soon fold their hands in devotion.

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.

Will without power is like children playing at soldiers.

Winter giveth the fields, and the trees so old, their beards of icicles and snow.

Wisely improve the Present. It is thine.

With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.

With useless endeavour Forever, forever, Is Sisyphus rolling His stone up the mountain!

Wondrous strong are the spells of fiction.

Work is my recreation, The play of faculty; a delight like that Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish In darting through the water,--Nothing more.

Would you learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers, comprehend its mystery!

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.

Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said; For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead.

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

Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours.

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

Youth comes but once in a lifetime.

Youth, hope, and love: To build a new life on a ruined life, To make the future fairer than the past, And make the past appear a troubled dream.

Youth wrenches the sceptre from old age, and sets the crown on its own head before it is entitled to it.

All praise and honor! I confess That bread and ale, home-baked, home-brewed Are wholesome and nutritious food, But not enough for all our needs; Poets-the best of them-are birds Of passage; where their instinct leads They range abroad for thoughts and words And from all climes bring home the seeds That germinate in flowers or weeds. They are not fowls in barnyards born To cackle o'er a grain of corn; And, if you shut the horizon down To the small limits of their town, What do you but degrade your bard Till he at last becomes as one Who thinks the all-encircling sun Rises and sets in his back yard?

Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-Hissar A city of the plague; And the loud, exultant cry That echoes wide and far Is: "Long live Scanderbeg!

Awake! arise! the hour is late! Angels are knocking at thy door! They are in haste and cannot wait, And once departed come no more. Awake! arise! the athlete's arm Loses its strength by too much rest; The fallow land, the untilled farm Produces only weeds at best.

A Psalm of 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 are, to dust thou returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, - act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solenm main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

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?

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining

Loss and Gain When I compare What I have lost with what I have gained, What I have missed with what attained, Little room do I find for pride. I am aware How many days have been idly spent; How like an arrow the good intent Has fallen short or been turned aside. But who shall dare To measure loss and gain in this wise? Defeat may be victory in disguise; The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.