I feel a kind of reverence for the first books of young authors. There is so much aspiration in them, so much audacious hope and trembling fear, so much of the heart's history, that all errors and shortcomings are for a while lost sight of in the amiable self assertion of youth.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAs turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies a dull brain.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature -were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAmbition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow