Quotes from Thomas Wentworth Higginson

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?

What instruction the baby brings to the mother!

To be really cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country.

In ancient Boeotia brides were carried home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, in token, that they would never again be needed.

After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

An easy thing, O Power Divine, To thank thee for these gifts of Thine, For summer's sunshine, winter's snow, For hearts that kindle thoughts that glow.

The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.

Life is as inexorable as the sea.

Fields are won by those who believe in the winning.

Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes.

When a thought takes one's breath away, a grammar lesson seems an impertinence.

The test of an author is not to be found merely in the number of his phrases that pass current in the corner of newspapers... but in the number of passages that have really taken root in younger minds.

All... religions show the same disparity between belief and practice, and each is safe till it tries to exclude the rest.

In an audience of rough people a generous sentiment always brings down the house. In the tumult of war both sides applaud a heroic deed.

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.

After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.

There may be phrases which shall be palaces to dwell in, treasure-houses to explore; a single word may be a window from which one may perceive all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them. Oftentimes a word shall speak what accumulated volumes have labored in vain to utter: there may be years of crowded passion in a word, and half a life in a sentence.

Do not waste a minute - not a second - in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.

Many persons sigh for death when it seems far off, but the inclination vanishes when the boat upsets, or the locomotive runs off the track, or the measles set it.

How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!