126 Quotes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!

What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?

The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.

The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a false sorrow.

With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves, the amber grain Shrunk in the wind,-and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates And through them presses a wild motley throng Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn These bringing with them unknown gods and rites Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws In street and alley what strange tongues are loud Accents of menace alien to our air Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew! O Liberty, white Goddess! Is it well To leave the gates unguarded?

Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.

Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows in yonder West; the fair, frail palaces, The fading Alps and archipelagoes and great cloud continents of sunset-seas.