Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.

Be noble in every thought And in every deed!

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.

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings.

Softly the evening came /with the sunset/.

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

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

My soul is full of longing for the secrets of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me.

For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.

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

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

I hear the wind among the trees Playing the celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.

Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.

How wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul. The intellect of man is enthroned visibly on his forehead and in his eye, and the heart of man is written on his countenance, but the soul, the soul reveals itself in the voice only.

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

For bells are the voice of the church They have tones that touch and search The hearts of young and old.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

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

If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.

Don't cross the bridge til you come to it.

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

When a great man dies for years the light he leaves behind him lies on the paths of men.

Your silent tents of green we deck with fragrant flowers; yours has the suffering been, the memory shall be ours.

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

So nature deals with us and takes away our play things one by one and by the hand leads us to rest.

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

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints in the sands of time.

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.

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

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.

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.

Talk not of wasted affection - affection never was wasted.

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

We have not wings we cannot soar but we have feet to scale and climb by slow degrees by more and more the cloudy summits of our time.

Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.

Resolve and thou art free.

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

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

I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Their old familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat. Of peace on earth goodwill to men.

Build today, then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

They who go Feel not the pain of parting; it is they Who stay behind that suffer.

It is difficult to know at what moment love begins it is less difficult to know that it has begun.

God's illumined promise.

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

The air of summer was sweeter than wine.

Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever condition you may find yourselves.

A feeling of sadness and longing, that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.

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

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

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.

It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.

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

We often excuse our own want of philanthropy by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ardent zeal of others.

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.

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

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.

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

The human voice is the organ of the soul.

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

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

Even cities have their graves!

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

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

Man is always more than he can know of himself; consequently, his accomplishments, time and again, will come as a surprise to him.

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

The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.

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

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

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance. . . . . And when the echoes had ceased like a sense of pain was the silence.

He that respects himself is safe from others.

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.

The nearer the dawn the darker the night.

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

Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.

Age is opportunity no less, Than youth itself, through in another dress.

Feet that run on willing errands

A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.

There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead; And when she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid.

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

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

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.

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

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.

He speaketh not and yet there lies a conversation in his eyes.

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.

Like a river down the gutter roars the rain, the welcome rain!

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

My soul is longing for the secrets of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me.

Love gives itself; it is not bought.

Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.

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

A word that has been said may be unsaid--it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.

Into each life some rain must fall.

Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.