Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

Build today, then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.

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

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

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.

Into each life some rain must fall.

This will be a great day in our history; the date of a New Revolution - quite as much needed as the old one. Even now as I write they are leading old John Brown to execution in Virginia for attempting to rescue slaves! This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind which will come soon!

The soul...is audible, not visible.

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

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

The Mormons make the marriage ring, like the ring of Saturn, fluid, not solid, and keep it in its place by numerous satellites.

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.

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

Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow, Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.Under the humble walls of the little catholic churchyard,In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed;Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors,Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!

Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares!

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.

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

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

The poor too often turn away unheard, From hearts that shut against them with a sound That will be heard in heaven.

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

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.

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.

Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.

I am never indifferent, and never pretend to be, to what people say or think of my books. They are my children, and I like to have them liked.

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

Music is the universal language of mankind.

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.

An enlightened mind is not hoodwinked; it is not shut up in a gloomy prison till it thinks the walls of its dungeon the limits of the universe, and the reach of its own chain the outer verge of intelligence.

I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.

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.

There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood.

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

Not chance of birth or place has made us friends, Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations, But the endeavor for the selfsame ends, With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.

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

The course of my long life hath reached at last in fragile bark over a tempestuous sea the common harbor, where must rendered be account for all the actions of the past.

Our hearts are lamps for ever burning.

Ah! What would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.

Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.

Love gives itself; it is not bought.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.