1.
A flirt is like a dipper attached to a hydrant; every one is at liberty to drink from it, but no one desires to carry it away.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
2.
One gets, sensitive about losing mornings after getting a little used to them with living in a country. Each one of these endlessly varied daybreaks is an opera but once performed.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
3.
Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart- rendered to God for his goodness.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
4.
Maturity is most rapid in the low latitudes, where pineapples and women most do thrive.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
5.
Pitch a lucky man into the Nile, says the Arabian proverb, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth!
Nathaniel Parker Willis
6.
Like Melrose Abbey, large cities should especially be viewed by moonlight.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
7.
It is the month of June,
The month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes,
And pleasant scents the noses.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
8.
I knelt, and with the fervor of a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told my love.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
9.
The lily and the rose in her fair face striving for precedence.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
10.
The taste forever refines in the study of women.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
11.
The rain is playing its soft pleasant tune fitfully on the skylight, and the shade of the fast-flying clouds across my book passed with delicate change.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
12.
I have unlearned contempt; it is a sin that is engendered earliest in the soul, and doth beset it like a poison worm feeding on all its beauty.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
13.
If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
14.
How beautiful it is for a man to die
Upon the walls of Zion! to be called
Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel,
To put his armour off, and rest in heaven!
Nathaniel Parker Willis
15.
Nature's noblemen are everywhere,--in town and out of town, gloved and rough-handed, rich and poor. Prejudice against a lord, because he is a lord, is losing the chance of finding a good fellow, as much as prejudice against a ploughman because he is a ploughman.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
16.
T is the work of many a dark hour, many a prayer, to bring the heart back from an infant gone.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
17.
Of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins
Nathaniel Parker Willis
18.
Temptation hath a music for all ears.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
19.
The children of the poor are so apt to look as if the rich would have been over-blest with such! Alas for the angel capabilities, interrupted so soon with care, and with after life so sadly unfulfilled.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
20.
The Spring is here--the delicate footed May,
With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers,
And with it comes a thirst to be away.
In lovelier scenes to pass these sweeter hours.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
21.
Fine taste is an aspect of genius itself, and is the faculty of delicate appreciation, which makes the best effects of art our own.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
22.
How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
23.
I love to go and mingle with the young
In the gay festal room--when every heart
Is beating faster than the merry tune,
And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips
Parted with eager joy, and their round cheeks
Flush'd with the beautiful motion of the dance.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
24.
I'm weary of my lonely but
And of its blasted tree,
The very lake is like my lot,
So silent constantly--
I've liv'd amid the forest gloom
Until I almost fear--
When will the thrilling voices come
My spirit thirsts to hear?
Nathaniel Parker Willis
25.
He who binds
His soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
26.
They are all up — the innumerable stars—
And hold their place in heaven. ...
There they stand,
Shining in order, like a living hymn
Written in light, awaking at the breath
Of the celestial dawn, and praising
Him Who made them, with the harmony of sphere.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
27.
The smallest pebble in the well of truth has its peculiar meaning, and will stand when man's best monuments have passed away.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
28.
Wisdom, sits alone, topmost in heaven: she is its light, its God; and in the heart of man she sits as high, though groveling minds forget her oftentimes, seeing but this world's idols.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
29.
Gentleness is the great point to be obtained in the study of manners.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
30.
A lamp is lit in woman's eye; that souls, else lost on earth, remember angels by.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
31.
Flirtation is a circulating library, in which we seldom ask twice for the same volume.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
32.
One lamp — thy mother’s love — amid the stars Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before The throne of God, burn through eternity - Holy — as it was lit and lent thee here.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
33.
Vulgarity is more obvious in satin than in homespun.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
34.
The innocence that feels no risk and is taught no caution, is more vulnerable than guilt, and oftener assailed.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
35.
O, when the heart is, full, when bitter thoughts come crowding thickly up for utterance, and the poor common words of courtesy are such a very mockery, how much the bursting heart may pour itself in prayer!
Nathaniel Parker Willis
36.
Some noble spirits mistake despair for content.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
37.
If e'er I win a parting token,
'Tis something that has lost its power--
A chain that has been used and broken,
A ruin'd glove, a faded flower;
Something that makes my pleasure less,
Something that means--forgetfulness.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
38.
And mad ambition trumpeteth to all.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
39.
Ah me! the world is full of meetings such as this,--a thrill, a voiceless challenge and reply, and sudden partings after!
Nathaniel Parker Willis
40.
The perfect world, by Adam trod,
Was the first temple--built by God--
His fiat laid the corner stone,
And heaved its pillars, one by one.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
41.
Youth is beautiful; its friendship is precious; the intercourse with it is a purifying release from the worn and stained harness of older life.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
42.
There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
43.
The soul of man createth its own destiny of power; and as the trial is intenser here, his being hath a nobler strength in heaven.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
44.
The position you hold and the work you are now doing.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
45.
Blessed are the joymakers.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
46.
The Italians say that a beautiful woman by her smiles draws tears from our purse.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
47.
Spring is a beautiful piece of work; and not to be in the country to see it done is the not realizing what glorious masters we are, and how cheerfully, minutely, and unflaggingly the fair fingers of the season broider the world for us.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
48.
Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies-
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
49.
The dust is old upon my "sandal-shoon,"
And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved
From wild America to Bosphor's waters,
And worshipp'd at innumerable shrines
Of beauty; and the painter's art, to me,
And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue,
And of dead kingdoms, I recall the soul,
Sitting amid their ruins.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
50.
The expressive word "quiet" defines the dress, manners, bow, and even physiognomy of every true denizen of St. James and Bond street.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
