926 Quotes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O gift of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be!

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending,--the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time.

Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!

O Music! language of the soul, Of love, of God to man; Bright beam from heaven thrilling, That lightens sorrow's weight.

When thou are not pleased, beloved, Then my heart is sad and darkened, As the shining river darkens When the clouds drop shadows on it! When thou smilest, my beloved, Then my troubled heart is brightened, As in sunshine gleam the ripples That the cold wind makes in rivers.

The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.

O little souls! as pure as white And crystalline as rays of light Direct from heaven, their source divine; Refracted through the mist of years, How red my setting sun appears, How lurid looks this soul of mine!

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today.

Simplicity is the character of the spring of life, costliness becomes its autumn; but a neatness and purity, like that of the snow-drop or lily of the valley, is the peculiar fascination of beauty, to which it lends enchantment, and gives what amiability is to the mind.