Quotes
Quotes about Will
These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;--
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;--
Under the laurel the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.
If you will observe, it does n't take
A man of giant mould to make
A giant shadow on the wall;
And he who in our daily sight
Seems but a figure mean and small,
Outlined in Fame's illusive light,
May stalk, a silhouette sublime,
Across the canvas of his time.
My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four;
The Earl can last but a few years more.
My Lord in the Peers will take his place:
Her Majesty's councils his words will grace.
Office he'll hold and patronage sway;
Fortunes and lives he will vote away;
And what are his qualifications?--ONE!
He's the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.
Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting;
So were it with me if forgetting could be willed.
Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring,
Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled.
With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.
When youth as lord of my unchallenged fate,
And time seemed but the vassal of my will,
I entertained certain guests of state--
The great of older days.
Like a blind spinner in the sun,
I tread my days:
I know that all the threads will run
Appointed ways.
I know each day will bring its task,
And being blind no more I ask.
Let any man show the world that he feels
Afraid of its bark and 't will fly at his heels:
Let him fearlessly face it, 't will leave him alone:
But 't will fawn at his feet if he flings it a bone.
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.
What good I see humbly I seek to do
And live obedient to the law, in trust
That what will come and must come will come well.
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty--they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. In the midst of battles, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death.
The love of the Right, tho' cast down, the hate of victorious Ill,
All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent will.
Slayer of the Winter, art thou here again?
O welcome, thou that bring'st the Summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain;
In some wise may come ending to my pain;
It may be yet the Gods will have me glad!
Yet, Love, I would that thee and pain I had!
So, lest I be inclined
To render ill for ill,--
Henceforth in me instil,
O God, a sweet good-will
To all mankind.
There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration--and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in Spring than in any other season. In the Spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of twenty-four hours.
So long as faith with freedom reigns
And loyal hope survives,
And gracious charity remains
To leaven lowly lives;
While there is one untrodden tract
For intellect or will,
And men are free to think and act,
Life is worth living still.
On a tree by a river a little tomtit
Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow?'
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried,
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
When will the dead world cease to dream,
When will the morning break?
? John Bartlett, comp"My mother says I must not pass
Too near that glass;
She is afraid that I will see
A little witch that looks like me,
With a red mouth to whisper low
The very thing I should not know."
The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.
Lord, for the erring thought
Not into evil wrought:
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still:
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.
The people will come to their own at last,--
God is not mocked forever.
Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other.
