Top 500 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “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

Featured in: Perseverance Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Deep Quotes, Work Ethic Quotes, Inspiring Quotes

2. “Music is the universal language of mankind.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Music Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Appreciation Quotes, Culture Quotes, Art Quotes

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Integrity Quotes, Short Inspiring Quotes, Excellence Quotes, Quotes About Work, Mistake Quotes

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Happiness Quotes, Deep Quotes About Life, Quotes About Humanity, Sorrow Quotes, Depression Quotes

5. “Silence and solitude, the soul’s best friends.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Serenity Quotes, Silence Quotes, Solitude Quotes

6. “Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

7. “If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Empathy Quotes, Life is Hard Quotes, Sad Quotes About Life, Suffering Quotes

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Poetry Quotes, Humanism Quotes, Legacy Quotes, Influence Quotes, Reputation Quotes

9. “Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act – act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Carpe Diem Quotes, Quotes About Acting

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Simplicity Quotes

11. “The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

12. “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.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Poetry Quotes

13. “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.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

14. “Don’t cross the bridge til you come to it.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Patience Quotes

15. “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

16. “Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Culture Quotes, Sorrow Quotes

17. “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

18. “Success is not something to wait for, it is something to work for.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

19. “In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

21. “The great tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still in him.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Regret Quotes

22. “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

23. “And when she was good she was very very good. But when she was bad she was horrid.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

25. “Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

26. “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.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

27. “Silence is a great peacemaker.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

28. “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.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

29. “I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

30. “Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

31. “Let the dead Past bury its dead!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Moving Forward Quotes

32. “The human voice is the organ of the soul.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

33. “Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

34. “Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

35. “Learn to labour and to wait.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

38. “The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

39. “Defeat may be victory in disguise.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

40. “I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth, I knew not where.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

42. “The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do, well.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

44. “Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor’s nose.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

46. “Give what you have. To some one, it may be better than you dare to think.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

47. “I will be a man among men; and no longer a dreamer among shadows.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

49. “No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving; as well might the mountain streamlets say they have nothing to give the sea because they are not rivers. Give what you have. To someone it may be better than you dare to think.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

50. “By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam, In the pleasant Summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Featured in: Summer Quotes