Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

1807–1882, American poet
quotes
99
topics
12
Origin
What do these mean?
Topic
“Resolve and thou art free.”
Commitment
“Youth comes but once in a lifetime.”
Youth
“Love gives itself; it is not bought.”
Love
“In ourselves are triumph and defeat.”
Victory
“The world loves a spice of wickedness.”
Wickedness
“The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.”
Difficulties
“There is not grief that does not speak.”
Grief
“The human voice is the organ of the soul.”
Voice
“The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.”
Firmness
“All things come round to him who will but wait.”
VerifiedTales of a Wayside Inn (1863–1874) · evidencePatience
“In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.”
VerifiedHyperion (1839) · evidenceCharacter
“Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.”
Arts and Artists
“Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.”
VerifiedVoices of the Night (1839) · evidenceEndurance
“Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.”
VerifiedEvangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847) · evidenceAffection
“The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.”
Pursuit
“All things must change to something new, to something strange.”
VerifiedKéramos, st. 3. Cf. The Tempest, act 1, sc. 2 · evidenceChange
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”
Beginning
“Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor's nose.”
Health
“Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think.”
Service
“Into each life some rain must fall, some days be dark and dreary.”
Difficulties
“That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.”
VerifiedEvangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847) · evidenceCycles
“Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.”
Illusion
“Some men must follow, and some command, though all are made of clay.”
Leaders and Leadership
“One half the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.”
Dreams
“Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age.”
Age and Aging
“Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall.”
VerifiedThe Rainy Day, originally in Bentley's Miscellany (Dec. 1841) p. 626 · evidenceDifficulties
“The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.”
Critics and Criticism
“No literature is complete until the language it was written in is dead.”
Language