Top 500 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

152. “O beautiful, awful summer day, what hast thou given, what taken away?”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

153. “Kind messages, that pass from land to land; Kind letters, that betray the heart’s deep history, In which we feel the pressure of a hand, – One touch of fire, – and all the rest is mystery!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

154. “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!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

155. “We are all architects of faith, ever living in these walls of time.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

156. “Gone are the living, but the dead remain, And not neglected; for a hand unseen, Scattering its bounty like a summer rain, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

157. “Time has a doomsday book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters never to be effaced.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

158. “When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

159. “The thoughts of Youth are long, long thoughts.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

160. “Let us, then, be what we are; speak what we think; and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

161. “Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, let us be merciful as well as just.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

162. “Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

163. “So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

164. “Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

165. “Stars of earth, these golden flowers; emblems of our own great resurrection; emblems of the bright and better land.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

166. “Art is the child of Nature.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

167. “Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love and joy and sorrow learn; Something with passion clasp, or perish And in itself to ashes burn.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

168. “Is this is a dream? O, if it be a dream, Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

169. “The morning pouring everywhere, its golden glory on the air.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

170. “Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

171. “An enlightened mind is not hoodwinked; it is not shut up in a gloomy prison till it thinks the walls of its dungeon the limits of the universe, and the reach of its own chain the outer verge of intelligence.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

172. “Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

173. “That tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms on it than it now bears. That tree grows new wood each year. Like that apple tree, I try to grow a new little wood each year.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

174. “A great sorrow, like a mariner’s quadrant, brings the sun at noon down to the horizon, and we learn where we are on the sea of life.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

175. “Tomorrow is the mysterious, unknown guest.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

176. “The soul never grows old.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

177. “Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

178. “The natural alone is permanent.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

179. “The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

180. “Not chance of birth or place has made us friends, Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations, But the endeavor for the selfsame ends, With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

181. “Death is better than disease.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

182. “Every man must patiently bide his time. He must wait – not in listless idleness but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavors, always willing and fulfilling and accomplishing his task, that when the occasion comes he may be equal to the occasion.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

183. “The course of my long life hath reached at last in fragile bark over a tempestuous sea the common harbor, where must rendered be account for all the actions of the past.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

184. “God’s voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

185. “Who ne’er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne’er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

186. “There is no flock, however watched and tended, but one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside howsoe’er defended, but has one vacant chair.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

187. “O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

188. “Three silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

189. “Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

190. “The prayer of Ajax was for light.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

191. “Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

192. “The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

193. “Write on your doors the saying wise and old. “Be bold!” and everywhere – “Be bold; Be not too bold!” Yet better the excess Than the defect; better the more than less sustaineth him and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

194. “Every man has his secret sorrows...”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

195. “Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever condition you may find yourselves.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

196. “Perseverance is a great element of success.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

197. “For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

198. “As to the pure mind all things are pure, so to the poetic mind all things are poetical.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

199. “One half the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

200. “I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow