Top 500 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

452. “Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

453. “But the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages, Brighter grows and gleams immortal, Unconsumed by moth or rust.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

454. “The twilight that surrounds the border-land of old romance.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

455. “Like black hulks the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

457. “Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

458. “Sang in tones of deep emotion Songs of love and songs of longing.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

459. “Fair words gladden so many a heart.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

460. “When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but shows it.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

461. “There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

462. “Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

463. “You know I say just what I think, and nothing more and less. I cannot say one thing and mean another.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

464. “I love an author the more for having been himself a lover of books.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

465. “There is nothing perfectly secure but poverty.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

466. “Two ways the rivers Leap down to different seas, and as they roll Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence Becomes a benefaction to the towns They visit, wandering silently among them, Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

467. “It is a beautiful trait in the lover’s character, that they think no evil of the object loved.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

468. “Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings – as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

469. “The air is full of farewells to the dying. And mournings for the dead.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

470. “With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

471. “Wondrous strong are the spells of fiction.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

472. “By unseen hands uplifted in the light Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad, And wafted up to heaven.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

473. “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!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

474. “I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

475. “Difficulty on the way to victory is opportunity for God to work.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

476. “Each morning sees some task begin, each evening sees it close.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

477. “See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away Over the snowy peaks!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

478. “The secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of oblivion. They are out of sight, but without them no superstructure can stand secure.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

479. “If you once understand an author’s character, the comprehension of his writings becomes easy.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

480. “They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

481. “All sense of hearing and of sight enfold in the serene delight and quietude of sleep.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

482. “Many have genius, but, wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

483. “Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

484. “Truths that startled the generation in which they were first announced become in the next age the commonplaces of conversation; as the famous airs of operas which thrilled the first audiences come to be played on hand-organs in the streets.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

485. “Truly, this world can get on without us, if we would but think so.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

486. “Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

487. “It is true, that it is not at all necessary to love many books, in order to love them much.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

488. “I know not how it is, but during a voyage I collect books as a ship does barnacles.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

489. “Day of the Lord, as all our days should be!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

490. “Will without power is like children playing at soldiers.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

491. “Today is the blocks with which we build.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

492. “Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

493. “Out of the shdows of night The world rolls into light.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

494. “For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

496. “The picture that approaches sculpture nearest Is the best picture.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

497. “How like they are to human things!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

498. “Fame grows like a tree if it have the principle of growth in it; the accumulated dews of ages freshen its leaves.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

499. “Burn, O evening hearth, and waken Pleasant visions, as of old! Though the house by winds be shaken, Safe I keep this room of gold!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

500. “The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow