Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

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

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think.

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

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

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.

In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.

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

As Unto the bow the the cord is ,So unto the man is woman;Though she bends him, she obeys him,Though she draws him , yet she follows:Useless each without the other.

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.

And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day,Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,and silently steal away.

Talk not of wasted affection - affection never was wasted.

Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.

There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.

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."

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

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.

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

Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.

...for it is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence. Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers Runnng through caverns of darkness...

There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Love gives itself; it is not bought.

Resolve and thou art free.

The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark

Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate, Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of Beginnings, Story without End, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

The human voice is the organ of the soul.

A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thought's of youth are long, long thoughhts

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

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.

The nearer the dawn the darker the night.

Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest.

Youth comes but once in a lifetime.

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.

It is a beautiful trait in the lover's character, that they think no evil of the object loved.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the Gods are everywhere

Ah! What would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.

He spake well who said that graves are the footprints of angels."

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.

Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.

A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.

All things must change to something new, to something strange.

The holiest of holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart.

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

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

Day of the Lord, as all our days should be!

Think not because no man sees, such things will remain unseen.

Every human heart is human.

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

None but yourself who are your greatest foe.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain.

Sculpture is more than painting. It is greater To raise the dead to life than to create Phantoms that seem to live.

Every dew-drop and rain-drop had a whole heaven within it.

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.

Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act — act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.

All things come round to him who will but wait.

God sent his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

Sometimes we may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues.

Be noble in every thought And in every deed!

The world loves a spice of wickedness.

The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless; love is eternal.

Age is opportunity no less than youth itself.

Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, let us be merciful as well as just

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts.

As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies a dull brain.

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.

Into each life some rain must fall, some days be dark and dreary.

Day, like a weary pilgrim, had reached the western gate of heaven, and Evening stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal shoon.

It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

To say the least, a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgment of others.

If I am not worth the wooing, I am surely not worth the winning.