30 quotes
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
The Golden Legend (1851)
O, there is nothing holier, in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of love,—the first fluttering of its silken wings.
Hyperion (1839)
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
Kavanagh: A Tale (1849)
Does not all the blood within me
Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee,
As the springs to meet the sunshine.
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time
Voices of the Night (1839)
Like Dian's kiss, unask'd, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought.
Endymion (1818)
Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
It serves for food and raiment.
The Spanish Student (1843)
Sang in tones of deep emotion,
Songs of love and songs of longing.
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
I love thee, as the good love heaven.
The Spanish Student (1843)
Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry.
Hyperion (1839)
For his heart was in his work, and the heart
Giveth grace unto every Art.
The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Voices of the Night (1839)
But thou dost make the very night itself
Brighter than day.
How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?
Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish
And in itself to ashes burn.
Hyperion (1839)
Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing,
As in a foundering ship.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.
Hyperion (1839)
The world loves a spice of wickedness.
Hyperion (1839)
Why don't you speak for yourself, John?
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)