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.

Longfellow

In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme ex... by Longfellow

In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.

Be still sad heart and cease repining; Behind the clouds the sun is shining, Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life a little rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.

Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as desti... by Longfellow

Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.

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.

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colourless when u... by Longfellow

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as the blazing meteor when it descends to earth is only a stone.

Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death.... by Longfellow

Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death....