Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
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.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Earch morning sees some task begin.
Each evening sees it close;
Something attemted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

- The Village Blacksmith, 1842

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

- Drift-Wood, 1857

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

- The Building of the Ship, 1849

Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sometimes we may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One half of the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some men must follow, and some command, though all are made of clay.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow