About Author : Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet whose works include “Paul Revere’s Ride”, The Song of Hiawatha, and “Evangeline”. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy and was one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets.Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1842). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, though he lived the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a former headquarters of George Washington.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes and Sayings
It is an illusion that youth is happy an illusion of those who have lost it.
The love of learning the sequestered nooks And all the sweet serenity of books.
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.
The holiest of holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart The secret anniversaries of the heart.
Talk not of wasted affection affection never was wasted.
Sometimes we may learn more from a man’s errors than from his virtues.
Silently one by one in the infinite meadows of heaven Blossomed the lovely stars the forget-me-nots of the angels.
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.
If I am not worth the wooing I am surely not worth the winning.
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.
Know how sublime a thing is to suffer and be strong.
It takes less time to do things right than to explain why you did it wrong.
Let us then be up and doing with a heart for any fate Still achieving still pursuing learn to labor and to wait.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm any hostility.
The adoration of his heart had been to her only as the perfume of a wild flower which she had carelessly crushed with her foot in passing.
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.
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.
We see but dimly through the mists and vapors Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad funeral tapers May be heaven’s distant lamps.
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth is only a stone.
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
Trust no future however pleasant Let the dead past bury its dead Act – act in the living Present Heart within and God overhead.
The morning pouring everywhere its golden glory on the air.
Great is the art of beginning but greater is the art of ending.
To which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
All things must change to something new to something strange.
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.
Learn to labour and to wait.
He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
A torn jacket is soon mended but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
Talk not of wasted affection affection never was wasted If it enrich not the heart of another its waters returning Back to their springs like the rain shall fill them full of refreshment That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing while others judge us by what we have already done.
Give what you have. To someone it may be better than you dare to think.
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
To say the least a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one’s judgement of others.