Quotes
Quotes - Longfellow
With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!
All things come round to him who will but wait.
A town that boasts inhabitants like me
Can have no lack of good society.
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.
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
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.
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.
I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls.
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals and forts.
All your strength is in your union
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together.
Big words do not smite like war-clubs,
Boastful breath is not a bow-string,
Taunts are not so sharp as arrows,
Deeds are better things than words are,
Actions mightier than boastings.
As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other.
Oh the long and dreary Winter!
Oh the cold and cruel Winter!
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.
Into a world unknown,--the corner-stone of a nation.
It is the fate of a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.
He is a little chimney and heated hot in a moment.
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Where'er a noble deed is wrought,
Where'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.
His form was ponderous and his step was slow;
There never was so wise a man before;
He seemed the incarnate "I told you so."
Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed and died,
In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide,
Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea,
And the slow years sailed by and ceased to be.
Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listen to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.
Much must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods.
Every guilty deed
Holds in itself the seed
Of retribution and undying pain.
