The collection / 167 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

SearchTypeTopicEraCulture / collection labelCountry attributionTraditionOrder

Author

Leave empty for every voice. Browse all authors ↗

Reset

Culture labels and country attributions follow the source collections; earliest origins may be unknown.

167 results · Page 6 of 7Play this collection ▷

01c. 1844 AD

When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but shows it.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

02c. 1844 AD

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, / Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, / Our hearts, in glad surprise, / To higher levels rise.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

03c. 1844 AD

Where the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway, many things are made clear that else lie hidden in darkness.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

04c. 1844 AD

"Wouldst thou," so the helmsman answered, / "Learn the secret of the sea? / Only those who brave its dangers / Comprehend its mystery!"

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

05c. 1844 AD

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colourless when unbroken.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

06c. 1844 AD

In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

07c. 1844 AD

The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us, at noon we trample them under foot, and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

08c. 1844 AD

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of the night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible. From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half sound, a half whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of the earth and all created things in the great miracle of nature—decay and reproduction—ever beginning, never ending—the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

09c. 1844 AD

With many readers brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought: they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under the ground.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

10c. 1844 AD

O how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul. The intellect of man sits enshrined visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written upon his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only, as God revealed himself to the prophet in the still small voice, and in a voice from the Burning Bush. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain invisible to man.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

11c. 1844 AD

The every-day cares and duties which men call drudgery are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of Time, giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the pendulum no longer sways, the hands no longer move, the clock stands still.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

12c. 1844 AD

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 W. Longfellow / quote

↗

13c. 1844 AD

Love gives itself, and is not bought.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

14c. 1844 AD

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

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

15c. 1844 AD

The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

16c. 1844 AD

The little that I have seen in the world, and known of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon their errors in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the tears of regret, the feebleness of purpose, the scorn of the world that has little charity, the desolation of the soul's sanctuary, and threatening voices within, health gone, happiness gone,—I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

17c. 1844 AD

Ships that pass at night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness: So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

18c. 1844 AD

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest, For those that wander they know not where Are full of trouble, and full of care; To stay at home is best.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

19c. 1844 AD

I am as homeless as the wind that moans And wanders through the streets.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

20c. 1844 AD

Into each life some rain must fall, Some days be dark and dreary But— Behind the cloud the sun's still shining.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

21c. 1844 AD

Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

22c. 1844 AD

If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrow that thou wouldst forget; If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills!—No tears Dim the sweet looks that Nature wears.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

23c. 1844 AD

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗

24c. 1844 AD

Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: ‘Here is a story book Thy Father has written for thee.’ ‘Come, wander with me,’ she said, ‘Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God.’ And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe. And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale.

Henry W. Longfellow / quote

↗