One half of the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Dreams
Resolve and thou art free.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Commitment
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: The Future, Tomorrow
In ourselves are triumph and defeat.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Victory
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.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Aging, Age
When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Death, Dying, Influence, Nature
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.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Love gives itself; it is not bought.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Love
Do thy duty; that is best; leave unto the Lord the rest.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Effort, Duty
The day is done; and slowly from the scene the stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts, and puts them back into his golden quiver!
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Magnificent autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds; not like a hermit, clad in gray; but like a warrior with the stain of blood on his brazen mail.—His crimson scarf is rent; his scarlet banner dripping with gore; his step like a flail on the threshing floor.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Autumn, Seasons
All that is best in the great poets of all countries, is not what is national in them, but what is universal.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Poetry
The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless; love is eternal.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The greatest grace of a gift, perhaps, is that it anticipates and admits of no return.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Giving
Write on your doors the saying wise and old. “Be bold!” and everywhere—“Be bold; Be not too bold!” Yet better the excess Than the defect; better the more than less sustaineth him and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Courage, Bravery
Thy voice is celestial melody.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Failure
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 Longfellow
Topics: Aspirations, Literature, Books, Reading
What shall I say to you? What can I say
Better than silence is?
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Silence
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: One Step at a Time, Accomplishment, Resilience, Achievement, Patience, Morning, Success & Failure
He speaketh not; and yet there lies
A conversation in his eyes.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Conversation
The human voice is the organ of the soul.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Something the heart must have to cherish; must love, and joy, and sorrow learn: something with passion clasp, or perish, and in itself to ashes burn.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Heart
When the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway, many things are made clear that else lie hidden in darkness.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Heart
Time itself … is the life of the soul.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Time Management
What is time?—The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries—these are but the arbitrary and outward signs—the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the life of the soul.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Time
The blossoms of passion, gay and luxuriant flowers, are bright and full of fragrance, but they beguile us and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Passion
‘Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Water
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James Russell Lowell American Poet, Critic
- Nathaniel Parker Willis American Poet, Playwright
- Celia Thaxter American Poet
- Edna St. Vincent Millay American Poet
- Emily Dickinson American Poet
- Edgar Allan Poe American Poet
- John Greenleaf Whittier American Poet, Abolitionist
- Thomas Bailey Aldrich American Writer
- Josiah Gilbert Holland American Editor, Novelist
- John Ciardi American Poet
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