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Quotes from John Greenleaf Whittier

Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
The age is dull and mean. Men creep,Not walk.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Angel of the backward look.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
His was the nation's sacrifice, And ours the priceless gain.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
"Who touches a hair of yon gray headDies like a dog! March on!" he said.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Ah! on Thanksgiving day.... When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more, And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before. What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye? What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But dim or clear, we own in Him The life, the truth, the way.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
No fetters in the Bay State—no slave upon our land!
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
All the windows of my heart I open to the day.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
We meet today To thank Thee for the era done, And Thee for the opening one.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,Knowledge never learned of schools.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,But spare your country's flag," she said.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
The smile of God is victory.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,Forgive our foolish ways!Reclothe us in our rightful mind,In purer lives Thy service find,In deeper reverence, praise.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
The Night is mother of the Day,The Winter of the Spring,And ever upon old DecayThe greenest mosses cling.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
From those great eyesThe soul has fled:When faith is lost, when honor dies,The man is dead!
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
No longer forward nor behindI look in hope or fearBut, grateful, take the good I findThe best of now and here.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
O Time and change! -- with hair as gray as was my sire's that winter day, how strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!
~ John Greenleaf Whittier