223 quotes
Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.
Poems (1844)
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.
Abraham Lincoln (1864)
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
Poems: Second Series (1848)
What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!
My Study Windows (1871)
One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.
Poems: Second Series (1848)
Earth’s noblest thing, — a woman perfected.
The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next.
Don Quixote. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.
All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.
Poems (1844)
The question of common sense is always "What is it good for?"—a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
My Study Windows (1871)
The capacity of indignation makes an essential part of the outfit of every honest man.
On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners (1869)
Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,
One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.
Poems (1844)
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame;
Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of eternity.
Poems (1844)
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
Literary Essays, vol. III (1870)
Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)