Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Quotes

• ‘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 art; to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.’

• Give what you have. To some it may be better than you dare think.

• 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.

• All are architects of fate. So look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again.

• A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.

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

• Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

• 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.

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

• The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
  And all the sweet serenity of books.

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

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

• 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.

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

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

• All the means of action - the shapeless masses - the materials - lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.

• Well has it been said that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak.

• Joy, temperance, and repose,
  Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

• 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.

• Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. In is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and a manly heart.