Top 500 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

352. “Ambition’s cradle oftenest is its grave.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

353. “O lovely eyes of azure, Clear as the waters of a brook that run Limpid and laughing in the summer sun!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

354. “Some poems are like the Centaurs – a mingling of man and beast, and begotten of Ixion on a cloud.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

355. “It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

356. “Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

357. “As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies a dull brain.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

358. “No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

359. “My Book and Heart Shall never part.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

360. “He looks the whole world in the face for he owes not any man.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

361. “A coquette is a young lady of more beauty than sense, more accomplishments than learning, more charms not person than graces of mind, more admirers than friends, mole fools than wise men for attendants.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

362. “The trees are white with dust, that o’er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind’s breath, While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

363. “And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

364. “The swallow is come! The swallow is come! O, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she brings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

365. “How can I teach your children gentleness and mercy to the weak, and reverence for life, which in its nakedness and excess, is still a gleam of God’s omnipotence, when by your laws, your actions and your speech, you contradict the very things I teach?”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

366. “Look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

367. “He had mittens, Minjekahwun, Magic mittens made of deer-skin; When upon his hands he wore them, He could smite the rocks asunder, He could grind them into powder.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

368. “What else remains for me? Youth, hope and love; To build a new life on a ruined life.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

369. “History casts its shadow far into the land of song.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

370. “The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

371. “Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

372. “Our blossoms of passion, gay and luxuriant flowers, are bright and full of fragrance, but they beguile us and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

373. “A noble type of good. Heroic womanhood.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

374. “The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

375. “Now to rivulets from the mountains Point the rods of fortune-tellers; Youth perpetual dwells in fountains, Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

376. “When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

377. “I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

378. “We waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into potions which, after all, do not immortalize, but only intoxicate.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

379. “It is the heart and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

380. “The greatest grace of a gift, perhaps, is that it anticipates and admits of no return.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

381. “Prayer is innocence’s friend; and willingly flieth incessant ’twist the earth and the sky, the carrier-pigeon of heaven.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

382. “Take them, O Death! and bear away Whatever thou canst call thine own! Thine image, stamped upon this clay, Doth give thee that, but that alone!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

383. “Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

384. “Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail. And crying havoc on the slug and snail.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

385. “There’s nothing fair nor beautiful, but takes Something from thee, that makes it beautiful.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

386. “And the wind plays on those great sonorous harps, the shrouds and masts of ships.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

387. “Our faith triumphant o’er our fears.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

388. “Thus, seamed with many scars Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior’s soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal! Thus the tale ended.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

389. “It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

390. “Our hearts are lamps for ever burning...”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

391. “O holy trust! O endless sense of rest! Like the beloved John To lay his head upon the Saviour’s breast, And thus to journey on!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

392. “I am never indifferent, and never pretend to be, to what people say or think of my books. They are my children, and I like to have them liked.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

393. “If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me, Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble to woo me? If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

394. “What discord should we bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered! Then we should govern the world, and not God. And do you think we should govern it better?”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

395. “A young critic is like a boy with a gun; he fires at every living thing he sees. He thinks only of his own skill, not of the pain he is giving.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

396. “Gone are the birds that were our summer guests.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

397. “All the means of action – the shapeless masses – the materials – lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

398. “Rule by patience, Laughing Water!”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

399. “What shall I say to you? What can I say Better than silence is?”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

400. “Some must follow and some command, through all are made oclay.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow