223 quotes
Ez fer war, I call it murder—
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
And but two ways are offered to our will,
Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace,
The problem still for us and all of human race.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man;
He’s ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,—
He’s ben true to one party, an’ thet is himself.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
They believed—faith, I'm puzzled—I think I may call
Their belief a believing in nothing at all,
Or something of that sort; I know they all went
For a general union of total dissent.
Fable for Critics (1848)
And what is so rare as a day in June?
The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)
There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on;
Whose prose is grand verse while his verse the Lord knows
Is some of it pr— No, 't is not even prose!
A Fable for Critics (1848)
If there are men who regret the Good Old Times, without too clear a notion of what they were, they should at least be thankful that we are rid of that misguided energy of faith which justifies conscience in making men unrelentingly cruel.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Aladdin's lamp.
He stood a spell on one foot fust
Then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He could n't ha' told ye nuther.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;
A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak,
If you've once found the way you've achieved the grand stroke.
A Fable for Critics (1848)
Simple as it seems, it was a great discovery that the key of knowledge could turn both ways, that it could open, as well as lock, the door of power to the many.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality!
It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)
For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,
A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds arise
Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.
Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new-born that drops into its place
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the Many, honored by the Few;
To count as naught in World or Church or State;
But inwardly in secret to be great.
Heartsease and Rue (1888)
But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and shamming,
And cared (shall I say?) not a d—n for their damning;
So they first read him out of their church and next minute
Turned round and declared he had never been in it.
A Fable for Critics (1848)
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt? No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!
Stanzas on Freedom (1843)