Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

Softly the evening came /with the sunset/.

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

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.

Into each life some rain must fall.

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

My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea

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

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.

After a day of cloud and wind and rain Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again, And touching all the darksome woods with light, Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing, Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring, Drops down into the night.

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.

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

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.

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.

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.

'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone.

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

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

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

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.

Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.

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

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

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

He had mittens, Minjekahwun, Magic mittens made of deer-skin; When upon his hands he wore them, He could smite the rocks asunder, He could grind them into powder.

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

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands.

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

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.

And the wind plays on those great sonorous harps, the shrouds and masts of ships.

This 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.

The Nile, forever new and old, Among the living and the dead, Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled.

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes and roofs of villages, on woodland crests and their aerial neighborhoods of nests deserted, on the curtained window-panes of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes and harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests.

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.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

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

Ships 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.

Very hot and still the air was, Very smooth the gliding river, Motionless the sleeping shadows.

But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise.

A coquette is a young lady of more beauty than sense, more accomplishments than learning, more charms not person than graces of mind, more admirers than friends, mole fools than wise men for attendants.

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.

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

Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start.

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, Buds that open only to decay.

Through woods and mountain passes The winds, like anthems, roll.

The 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.

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.

The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama.