Quotes from Nathaniel Parker Willis

The innocence that feels no risk and is taught no caution, is more vulnerable than guilt, and oftener assailed.

The smallest pebble in the well of truth has its peculiar meaning, and will stand when man's best monuments have passed away.

The soul of man createth its own destiny.

The ear in man and beast is an evidence of blood and high breeding.

There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.

One lamp — thy mother's love — amid the stars Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before The throne of God, burn through eternity - Holy — as it was lit and lent thee here.

Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart- rendered to God for his goodness.

Temptation hath a music for all ears.

Nature has wrought with a bolder hand in America.

The perfect world, by Adam trod, Was the first temple--built by God-- His fiat laid the corner stone, And heaved its pillars, one by one.

He who binds His soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven.

The soul of man createth its own destiny of power; and as the trial is intenser here, his being hath a nobler strength in heaven.

Youth is beautiful; its friendship is precious; the intercourse with it is a purifying release from the worn and stained harness of older life.

I knelt, and with the fervor of a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told my love.

If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.

Blessed are the joymakers.

Wisdom, sits alone, topmost in heaven: she is its light, its God; and in the heart of man she sits as high, though groveling minds forget her oftentimes, seeing but this world's idols.

Pitch a lucky man into the Nile, says the Arabian proverb, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth!

Maturity is most rapid in the low latitudes, where pineapples and women most do thrive.

At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.

T is the work of many a dark hour, many a prayer, to bring the heart back from an infant gone.

The lily and the rose in her fair face striving for precedence.

The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature.

I have unlearned contempt; it is a sin that is engendered earliest in the soul, and doth beset it like a poison worm feeding on all its beauty.