Top 120 John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear, O’er the rabble’s laughter; And, while Hatred’s fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

52. “Clothe with life the weak intent, Let me be the thing I meant...”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

53. “And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

54. “The saddest thing of word or pen, To know the things that might have been.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

55. “Who never wins can rarely lose, Who never climbs as rarely falls.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

56. “Nature eschews regular lines; she does not shape her lines by a common model. Not one of Eve’s numerous progeny in all respects resembles her who first culled the flowers of Eden. To the infinite variety and picturesque inequality of nature we owe the great charm of her uncloying beauty.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

57. “The green earth sends her incense up. From many a mountain shrine; From folded leaf and dewey cup She pours her sacred wine.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

58. “The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

59. “O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

60. “Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

61. “His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than in words, was simply doing good.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

62. “Falsehoods which we spurn today, were the truths of long ago.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

63. “There is religion in everything around us, – a calm and holy religion in the unbreathing things of Nature, which man would do well to imitate.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

64. “So let it be in God’s own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons he has given, – The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

65. “Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

66. “As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

67. “Man is more than constitutions.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

68. “Despair is infidelity and death.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

69. “God gives quietness at last.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

70. “Children have neither past nor future – they rejoice in the present.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

71. “The sooner we recognize the fact that the mercy of the Almighty extends to every creature endowed with life, the better it will be for us as men and Christians.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

72. “The laws of changeless justice bind oppressor and oppressed; and, close as sin and suffering joined we march to fate abreast.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

73. “And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief; Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

74. “The low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

75. “There’s life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

76. “The continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward and is lost to our sight, but under its new horizon it carries the same waters which it gathered under ours, and its unseen valleys are made glad by the offerings which are borne down to them from the past, – flowers, perchance, the germs of which its own waves had planted on the banks of Time.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

77. “Love hath never known a law beyond its own sweet will.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

78. “Simple duty hath no place for fear.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

79. “Again the blackbirds sings; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

80. “Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing, under the sky’s gray arch. Smiling, I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing It is the wind of March.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

81. “Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man! He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

82. “What miracle of weird transforming Is this wild work of frost and light, This glimpse of glory infinite?”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

83. “Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, In sweetness, not in music, dying.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

84. “Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

85. “He is wisest, who only gives, True to himself, the best he can: Who drifting on the winds of praise, The inward monitor obeys. And with the boldness that confuses fear Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

86. “For still the new transcends the old In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

87. “A grateful loving heart carries with it, under every parallel of latitude, the warmth and light of the tropics. It plants its Eden in the wilderness and solitary place, and sows with flowers the gray desolation of rock and mosses.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

88. “Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

89. “Freedom’s soil hath only place For a free and fearless race!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

90. “The still, sad music of humanity.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

91. “To be saved is only this-salvation from our own selfishness.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

92. “The child must teach the man.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

93. “And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October’s wood. And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October’s wood.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

94. “Through the open door A drowsy smell of flowers -grey heliotrope And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette Comes fairly in, and silent chorus leads To the pervading symphony of Peace.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

95. “Bathsheba! to whom none ever said scat- No worthier cat Ever sat on a mat, Or caught a rat. Requiescat!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

96. “O Time and change! – with hair as gray as was my sire’s that winter day, how strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

97. “The simple heart that freely asks in love, obtains.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

98. “The dreariest spot in all the land to Death they set apart; with scanty grace from Nature’s hand, and none from that of Art.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

99. “Our toil is sweet with thankfulness, Our burden is our boon; The curse of earth’s gray morning is The blessing of its noon.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

100. “Once more the liberal year laughs out O’er richer stores than gems or gold: Once more with harvest song and shout Is nature’s boldest triumph told.”

— John Greenleaf Whittier