Skip links

Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Nathaniel Parker Willis (American Poet, Playwright)

Inspirational Quotations by Nathaniel Parker Willis (American Poet, Playwright)

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–67) was an American poet, playwright, and essayist.

Born in Portland, Maine, raised in Boston and educated at Yale, Willis published numerous volumes of poetry, founded the American Monthly Magazine in Boston (1829) and in 1831 visited Europe, and contributed to the New York Mirror his Pencillings by the Way (3 vols., 1835–44.)

Employed as an attaché to the U.S. legation in Paris, Willis visited Greece and Turkey and returned to England in 1837. He contributed to the London New Monthly his Inklings of Adventure (collected 1836,) and published Letters from under a Bridge (1840.)

In 1844, Willis edited the Daily Mirror, revisited Europe, and published Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil (1845.) Returning to New York in 1846, he founded the Home Journal. He also reissued his earlier books under new titles and collected short stories in such volumes as Life, Here and There (1850.)

Willis’s sister, Sara Payson Willis (1811–72,) who wrote under the name ‘Fanny Fern,’ was a famous writer.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Nathaniel Parker Willis

The innocence that feels no risk and is taught no caution is more vulnerable than guilt, and oftener assailed.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Risk, Innocence

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
Topics: Luck

The rain is playing its soft pleasant tune fitfully on the skylight, and the shade of the fast-flying clouds passes with delicate change across my book.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Rain

The night is made for tenderness so still that the low whisper, scarcely audible, is heard like music, and so deeply pure that the fond thought is chastened as it springs and on the lip is made holy.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Night

How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Ambition

The soul of man createth its own destiny of power; and as the trial is intenser here, his being hath a nobler strength of heaven.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Man

Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Gratitude

Twilight hour! whose mantle is the drapery of dreams, and who hast ever been in poetry life’s holy time; thou wert wont to steal upon us, as thy sandals were of dew! how sadly comes the rustle of thy step in the decaying seasons of the year!
—Nathaniel Parker Willis

Temptation hath a music for all ears.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Temptation

If there is any thing that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of evil, it is a pure human love.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis

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

There aid so few that resist the allurements and luxuries of the table, that the usual civilities at a meal are very like being politely assisted to the grave.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis

No degree of temptation justifies any degree of sin.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Temptation

Intellect — the starlight of the brain.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis

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
Topics: Mothers

For woman’s love — I mean self-love, is boundless, just like the sea, and sometimes quite as groundless.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Love

Of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Travel

We believe that we shall know each other’s forms hereafter, and, in the bright fields of the better land, shall call the lost dead to us.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis

The position you hold and the work you are now doing.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Business

Nature has thrown a veil of modest beauty over maidenhood and moss roses.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Maidenhood

Vulgarity is more obvious in satin than in homespun.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Swearing, Vulgarity

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
Topics: Meeting

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Stars

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

The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Art

Such is the force of envy and ill-nature, that the failings of good men are more published to the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a well-deserving man shall meet with more reproaches than all his virtues will with praise.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis

Youth is beautiful. Its friendship is precious. The intercourse with it is a purifying release from the worn and stained hardness of older life.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis
Topics: Youth

Wondering Whom to Read Next?