Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest On this Field of the Grounded Arms, Where foes no more molest, Nor sentry’s shot alarms!

Footprints, that perhaps another, Travelling o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

"Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Yes, into Life's deep stream!
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
That can soothe thee, or affright, -
Be these henceforth thy theme.

(excerpt from "Voices of the Night")"

Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

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

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.

A town that boasts inhabitants like me
Can have no lack of good society.

Thine was the prophet's vision, thine
The exaltation, the divine
Insanity of noble minds,
That never falters nor abates,
But labors and endures and waits,
Till all that it foresees it finds
Or what it can not find creates.

All things come round to him who will but wait.

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

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen. By going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this man or that, or by turning down this street instead of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the whole current of our lives would have been changed. There is no possible solution to the dark enigma but the one word, "Providence".

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

Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit;
Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth;
Greater than anger is love that subdueth.