Quotes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.

Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.

Don't cross the bridge til you come to it.

Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee; All things are passing; God never changeth; Patient endurance Attaineth to all things; Who God possesseth In nothing is wanting; Alone God sufficeth.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.

For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Nature ; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made.

Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite.

The heaven of poetry and romance still lies around us and within us.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us.

It is Lucifer, The son of mystery; And since God suffers him to be, He too, is God's minister, And labors for some good By us not understood.

Nothing is or can be accidental with God.

God's voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.

God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls, The burial-ground God's-Acre.

At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, That nothing with God can be accidental.

Nothing with God can be accidental.

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

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?