223 quotes
Democ'acy gives every man
A right to be his own oppressor.
A wise scepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.
Poems (1844)
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
The one thet fust gits mad 's 'most ollers wrong.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
An umbrella is of no avail against a Scotch mist.
Literary Essays, vol. III (1870)
Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains.
Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
It's 'most enough to make a deacon swear.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
Poems (1844)
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold.
Poems: Second Series (1848)
Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key.
The Present Crisis (1844)
A terrible thing to be pestered with poets!
But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb holds good,
She never will cry till she's out of the wood!
Fable for Critics (1848)
The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow
Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below.
Epistle to George William Curtis (1874)
No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,
An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
A reading-machine, always wound up and going,
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
A Fable for Critics (1848)
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion, — emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
* A woman's love
Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,
And by its weakness overcomes.
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;
We are happy now because God wills it.
The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)