Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882 / Portland, Maine)

poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#20 on top 500 poets

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

  • ''We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.''
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. Kavanagh, bk. 1, ch. 1 (1849).
    974 person liked.
    		270 person did not like.
  • ''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 (1807-1882), U.S. poet. one of the meditations of Mr. Churchill, inscribed on his pulpit, in Kavanagh, bk. 1, ch. 13 (1849).
    133 person liked.
    		49 person did not like.
  • ''The Mormons make the marriage ring, like the ring of Saturn, fluid, not solid, and keep it in its place by numerous satellites.''
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. repr. In Complete Works, vol. 1 (1886). "Table-Talk," Drift-Wood (1857 edition).
    116 person liked.
    		52 person did not like.
  • ''The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.''
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. repr. In Complete Works, vol. 1 (1886). "Table-Talk," Drift-Wood (1857).
    107 person liked.
    		43 person did not like.
  • ''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 (1807-1882), U.S. poet. Kavanagh, bk. 1, ch. 13 (1849). One of the meditations of Mr. Churchill, inscribed on his pulpit.
    124 person liked.
    		39 person did not like.
  • ''Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.''
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. Kavanagh, bk. 1, ch. 13 (1849). One of the meditations of Mr. Churchill, inscribed on his pulpit.
    22 person liked.
    		1 person did not like.

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Best Poem of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Psalm Of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the ...

Read the full of A Psalm Of Life

The Belfrey Of Bruges

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfrey old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world through off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

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