The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowSome 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 LongfellowThe morrow was a bright September morn; The earth was beautiful as if newborn; There was nameless splendor everywhere, That wild exhilaration in the air, Which makes the passers in the city street Congratulate each other as they meet.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowMany people do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowTime 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 LongfellowIn the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the Gods are everywhere
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAs a fond mother, when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor. Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead Which, the more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowI 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.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAll sense of hearing and of sight enfold in the serene delight and quietude of sleep.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowI do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe day is dark and cold and dreary; it rains, and the wind is never weary.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThere's nothing in this world so sweet as love. And next to love the sweetest thing is hate.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowWhen Christ ascended Triumphantly from star to star He left the gates of Heaven ajar.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowA spirit of criticism, if indulged in, leads to a censoriousness of disposition that is destructive of all nobler feeling. The man who lives to find faults has a miserable mission.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowDoubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThere are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowSpake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowA single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowGive what you have. To some one, it may be better than you dare to think.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowPeople of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little in love.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowShips that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe 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 LongfellowAnd when she was good she was very very good. But when she was bad she was horrid.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThis 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 LongfellowLike a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow